Duty Before Honor
by SilverShine
Summary: [KakaSaku] Sakura knew why Tsunade didn’t want a virgin on this mission. Things might get out of hand. Acts might be carried out too far. She was glad Kakashi was accompanying her, but right then she wouldn’t have minded the entire population of Konoha.
1. In which Sakura's chastity is questioned

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* * *

Some things never seem important 'till they're gone.  
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_Constantly struggling to make it on her own,_

_She becomes so aware, that life is ruthlessly unfair._

* * *

"Are you a virgin?" 

Sakura froze and stared at the woman who had taught her almost everything she knew about being a ninja. What made the question even more awkward was that the man who had taught her everything else about being a ninja, Hatake Kakashi, was standing directly beside her, trying not to look interested in the answer by staring blankly at a light fitting. Two ANBU stood on either side of the door, their masks guarding whatever thoughts they had about the question, and the chunin that Tsunade employed to catalogue her records was working at his desk. By the way his pen had paused against his book and his eyes remained fixed to his work indicated he was listening pretty closely too.

A delicate blush, barely perceptible, tinted Sakura's cheeks. "Um… why do you wish to know Tsunade-sensei?" she asked, schooling her voice to keep calm. Before she gave a potentially embarrassing answer, she just wanted to know if there was a reason behind the question, and not Tsunade playing a cruel joke.

"Sakura, I'm sending you on a very tricky mission here," Tsunade told her. "I'm choosing you because you are the best Kunoichi in the village…"

Sakura's ego soared.

"…who isn't already on a mission."

The ego plummeted back to earth.

"I would rather prefer sending a more seasoned woman on this mission," Tsunade said, leaning back in her chair and tenting her fingers. "But situation requires more talent than experience… but experience really is quite necessary too. I would prefer if you had a little of the latter asset…"

Sakura tried not to look at any of the other men in the room, especially not her perverted teacher who was still staring at the light fixture. Her blush had intensified, making her face feel rather warm. "Y-You mean… experience of the s-se-"

"Sexual nature? Yes." Tsunade had a wry smile on her face. The kind of smile only an old woman who had seen it all could give a child who knew nothing. Sometimes it looked odd on her twenty-something face. "Which is why I ask you… are you a virgin?"

Sakura still couldn't work the words around the lump in her throat to answer.

Kakashi yawned next to her.

"I see," Tsunade said suddenly. "Oh, well. I'll just have to send Ino on this one. She may not have your strength, Sakura, but I hear she's quite the hit with the lads-"

"I can do it!" Sakura blurted impulsively as bitter jealousy surged through her veins.

She may have been on good terms with Ino these days, but even trips to the shops and blubbering together during sad romance films was not enough to kill the deep-seated rivalry they shared. A rivalry that, at times, could be more spiteful and psychologically traumatizing than the one between Naruto and Sasuke. Sakura was leagues ahead of Ino now that Tsunade had unwrapped her budding potential and nurtured it, but she could already hear Ino's crows of triumph for taking on an A-class mission that Sakura herself couldn't handle. Sakura couldn't let Ino win this one.

Tsunade's eyebrow tilted up. "Oh?" she practically purred.

"I-I…" Sakura swallowed her embarrassment quite literally with a gulp. "I have experience of that… nature. I can do whatever you ask of me."

The hokage grinned. "That's good. But honestly, you surprise me, Sakura… I really didn't peg you as that kind of girl…"

Sakura glared fiercely at her former teacher, discreetly hinting that she should drop it. Tsunade just smiled. She knew that Sakura's temper was too much like her own to risk igniting.

"Anyway, it's still a dangerous mission, even with your skills Sakura. Which is why I'm sending Kakashi with you. He is, after all, Konoha's strongest ninja…"

"Hokage-sama, you're too kind-"

"…who isn't an Uchiha, a Jinchuuriki, a teenager or away on a mission." Tsunade finished. "Plus, you're familiar with one another. I'd prefer to send a team on this one who already know and trust one another."

Sakura looked up at Kakashi and cursed her choice of standing on his left side. With his mask and the hitai-ate lowered over his eye, his face was completely hidden from Sakura's position. She sighed and looked away. She'd wanted to see how he'd reacted to that comment, because while they did know and trust each other… they hadn't actually spoken in almost a year.

Well, ok, they crossed paths in the street occasionally and he'd sometimes find the energy to lift his hand and say, "Yo." But that was the kind of thing you did when you spotted your best friend's cousin's mother's friend whom you knew, but you didn't particularly _know_.

He'd been her teacher for nearly a year, and after Naruto had returned, he'd been her commander. Yes, he'd _said_ 'we're equals now', but they all knew very well that he was the one who called the shots and could still kick their asses in a fair fight – sans curse seals and kyuubis.

Two years on, and Team Kakashi now consisted of the man himself and three genin newbies who'd graduated last year. Sakura was a jonin, being drafted into various missions with all sorts of people she'd never worked with before. Naruto, having missed three years of Konoha life, had only just graduated to chunin and was training furiously to catch up with the rest of the peers who were now mostly enjoying jonin privileges with Sakura.

Sasuke still wasn't entirely trusted by Konoha, having only willingly returned with Naruto just over a year ago. He'd been branded as a mad genius, just like his brother, and was currently struggling to prove his mental stability and maturity enough to graduate from genin rank.

Sakura had to laugh. For all his arrogance and genius, it rankled him superbly to see the 'weakest' member of Team Seven reach jonin status before him. The circumstances _were_ extenuating, so he managed to take it in surprisingly good grace, especially with all Naruto did to rub his face in it. And Sakura's unspoken tag of 'weakest' had evaporated quite abruptly the first time he'd seen her punch a hole three a three foot deep concrete wall. (Although, he hadn't been impressed enough to fall head over heels in love with her, as she'd hoped.)

But now, because of their different ranks, getting teamed up for the same missions was close to impossible. Sasuke was stuck fetching cats out of trees, Naruto was busy getting frustrated with average missions and if Sakura wasn't working at the hospital, she was taking on the tougher missions on offer. The three still spent an inordinate amount of time in each other's company, but Kakashi was never a part of it. It seemed that without the incentive of being a teacher, he simply had no inclination to socialize with the three.

Sakura wondered if this was simply because he was introverted, or if he just didn't care.

Looking at his blank profile in Tsunade's office offered little answer.

Tsunade handed the mission scroll to Sakura, enforcing the idea that this was really _Sakura's _mission. As Sakura read and Kakashi scratched his neck, Tsunade provided a verbal briefing. "As you can see in that scroll, the target's name is Matsura. Just Matsura. You probably know of him already, though."

"Yes," Sakura's mouth had gone dry.

"Particularly infamous nin of unknown origin," Kakashi said, as if remembering as he spoke. "Said to be on par with the legendary sannins. And has a particular fancy for… uh…"

"Underage girls," Sakura finished bitterly. She realized Tsunade's real intentions behind her earlier question regarding Sakura's chastity.

"You're one of the youngest female jonins we have at the moment," Tsunade said, her face oddly blank. "Seventeen is a little old for Matsura's vile tastes, but you're a slim, petite girl." She looked rather meaningfully at Sakura's chest as she said this. "You could claim to be younger and no one would be any wiser."

Sakura shifted uncomfortably. Now she didn't regret accepting the mission at all. She wouldn't have wanted Ino anywhere near this man. _Rather me than you, Pig_, she thought. Judging from the angle of Kakashi's head, he was looking rather intensely at the floor. The cataloguing chunin was back to cataloguing at twice his usual speed. The ANBU guards were impassive as ever.

"Of course, this is just a means of getting close to him," Tsunade continued. "Our client claims that Matsura stole a very precious family heirloom from him, and he commissioned this A-class mission to recover it. I'm tempted to say it's bordering on S-class, though. Matsura is not a man to take lightly. The scroll details what you're looking for and where you might find it."

Sakura finished reading and passed it to Kakashi who held it up to the light to scrutinize.

"Honestly, the only way I can see anyone getting near him is to prey on his weakness for young girls," said Tsunade regretfully. "I'm almost willing to believe that he favors younger girls for a reason – because he expects enemies to use women against him. It's a common tactic. Taking a child to bed is less of a threat than taking a grown woman who might potentially be an enemy kunoichi."

She thought for a moment.

"It's more likely he's just a pervert, though."

Sakura shuddered. She was happier with her common or garden perverts like Jiraiya – and to an extent, Kakashi. Naruto was shaping up to be quite the peeping tom, but these people were quite harmless compared to Matsura. Well… Jiraiya wasn't quite so harmless. Especially after the main heroine in the last _Icha Icha _book had her name briefly switched to 'Sakura' for two whole paragraphs.

Now Sakura knew why Tsunade didn't want a virgin on this mission. Things might get out of hand… acts might be carried out too far…

Sakura had never been so glad to hear Kakashi was accompanying her, although she wouldn't have minded having most of the male population of Konoha at her defense, and then some.

"I don't have to tell you that it would be unwise to engage him in actual combat," Tsunade was saying. "_I'd _have trouble with him. He'd flat out crush the two of you if things escalated to that degree. Just recover the stolen property and get the hell out of there as fast as possible – and don't either of you _dare_ leave any clue that Konoha was involved. The last thing we need is someone like Matsura getting a bee in his bonnet about us. We've got enough problems as it is."

Kakashi shifted his weight and folded his arms. "Why not just turn the mission down if it's so risky?" he asked. His voice was light and nonchalant, as if he didn't really care. But Sakura had never known him to question the validity of a mission before. He must really have been concerned…

Tsunade sighed. "The money is too good, Kakashi. The village needs it."

"It's alright," Sakura said to him. "We can do this."

He looked down at her, and for the first time since she'd entered the room, their gazes met. But as usual, Kakashi's exposed eye was dark and unreadable. Sakura hated to think how easily he could read hers in comparison, and so quickly looked away.

"I'll leave any other arrangements and plans to the two of you," Tsunade said, pulling a wad of folders from her inbox towards her. "I'm sure you're plenty able. You can leave tomorrow. Our client hasn't set a deadline, but it would be nice if you could make it back within a week. It simply wouldn't be safe otherwise."

Sakura nodded. "Yes, Hokage-sama."

"Hokage-sama," Kakashi echoed.

"Alright then!" Tsunade lifted her hands and flapped them. "Shoo shoo. Sort this out between yourselves."

The moment Kakashi closed the door behind them, he turned to her with his hands stuffed in his pockets. "Are you sure about this?"

Sakura's throat tightened. "I can handle it."

It was the same old thing. Everyone felt they had to look out for her and protect her because she was weak and female and she would rather heal a friend than kill an enemy. That was why it was so funny that she was the only one who'd graduated to jonin from Team Seven. Because no one had expected it.

But why? Why couldn't she be expected to perform just as well, if not better than her male team mates? Why did Kakashi have to open his big stupid mouth and make her doubt her own ability?

"I'm sure Ino would be more than willing to take this mission off your hands…" he went on.

"No," Sakura said abruptly. "I don't want her on this. She's not strong enough. And besides… they want someone who can pass for fifteen and younger. Ino's too…" Her face grew hot again. "…developed."

The girl in question had enough 'development' to rival Tsunade. Personally, Sakura thought it was a bit of handicap for a ninja to be so top heavy, but Ino was quite happy. As were most of her boyfriends.

It was just another area of competition for Ino to lord it over Sakura…

"Alright then," Kakashi eased back slightly. "We'll find a room at jonin headquarters and start planning then," he said. Sakura nodded her agreement and traipsed after him, mission scroll tucked safely away in her belt pouch.

They didn't say much on their walk to the headquarters that lay a few blocks and bridges away from Tsunade's office. Kakashi probably felt it was quite a comfortable silence. Sakura had never felt so awkward in her life.

She wanted to say something friendly and companionable and have him engage in gentle banter and small talk. He'd never actually been one for idle chatter, but normally it wasn't so hard to at least get the ball rolling. But the last time they'd really spoken had been at her inauguration to become a jonin. Which had gone something like:

"Good job, Sakura. Well done."

"Thank you, Kakashi-sensei."

"Oh, you shouldn't call me that anymore. We're both jonins now. I've finished teaching you."

"Ok… then what should I call you?"

"Kakashi-sama will do."

"I think I'll just stick to senpai…"

"If you like."

"Do you want another sausage on a stick?"

"Don't mind if I do. This is a bit fancy, isn't it? Back in my day, we didn't have sausages on sticks for jonin inaugurations."

"Back when the ice age was just finishing up?"

"Yes. I seem to recall the wheel being invented around the same time."

"What _did _you have for jonin inaugurations then?"

"We were given A-class missions and sent into battle and inevitably got a third of our teams killed by negligence and inexperience. Fun times."

"…Kakashi-senpai…?"

"Yes, Sakura?"

"You're a party pooper."

After the party she'd gone off for drinks with Naruto and Sasuke and bought them enough alcohol to make them forget that she'd graduated before them. "Why!" Naruto had wailed. Sakura had responded with a prim, if not drunkenly slurred, "Because I'm more m-mature and intelligent than you two stupid-heads. Hic."

With no need for a teacher, Sakura hardly saw much of Kakashi after that. If ever she had a problem with a jutsu, she went to Tsunade, as they had more in common in terms of abilities. She rarely worked with other jonins unless it was it was a particularly difficult mission, and even then, the chances of being teamed up with Kakashi were slim.

Sakura wondered if he felt a bit neglected.

Then she realized _she _was probably the one who'd been neglected. Who'd been the one to devote all his time on the Uchiha prodigy, forsaking his obligation to his other students? Who had a habit of walking past her in the jonin headquarters without even acknowledging her with a glance?

Kakashi didn't get attached to people, she realized, a little sadly. He'd _always _been like that.

It made her feel more childish for expecting extra consideration.

Room 6B was free when they arrived. Sakura settled down on the sofa supplied and propped her feet on the coffee table.

"Want some tea?" Kakashi asked her.

"Please."

A lot of planning went on in these rooms with meetings that could take all day, which was why each room came with its own supply of tea bags, coffee granules and kettles. Kakashi began banging around the cupboards, trying to locate clean cups as Sakura pawed through the batch of leaflets that had been sprawled across the coffee table. Most seemed to be advertising life insurance.

Sakura had already tried taking out a policy. She'd been turned down on account of being 'too female, too young, and too likely to be killed within the next ten years' by the insurance company. That had been a bit upsetting. It was hard to think her life was worth nothing in monetary values.

Someone like Kakashi on the other hand, was probably worth a fortune. Only problem was, Sakura didn't think he even _had _a family to support, so why bother?

A cup of tea was set down before her, and she mumbled a soft thank you before leaning forward to drop a few cubes of sugar into her drink. She offered the bowl to Kakashi who promptly tipped half the contents into his own tea. Sakura shook her head.

"So that's why you wear a mask," she murmured.

"Mm?"

"You've rotted all your teeth out, haven't you?"

"Ah, you caught me." He shrugged and sipped his tea – through his mask as usual. Sakura didn't find this to be a particularly hygienic method, but Kakashi was a bit neurotic like that.

Sakura opened up the scroll and spread it on the table between them. "Ok, so… apparently this guy lives in a fortified compound east of here. About a day away. If we leave tomorrow morning, say, six o'clock, we should be there around midnight maybe."

"Mm." Kakashi looked bored.

"We don't know how he obtains these poor girls, so it might be wise to simply hang around an observe-"

"He usually buys them in some way," Kakashi interrupted. "He'll do a favor for some guy, and in return, some guy will hand over his daughter for a few nights."

Sakura's face twisted, but she said nothing.

"Mostly he seems to just pick them up on his travels. There are a lot of unprotected orphan girls in a time of war, desperate enough to go with him in return for food and shelter," he said.

"Ok… ok," Sakura read through the last paragraph on the scroll. "Ok… I'll probably need your help to get inside the compound then. You can say you want to commission Matsura for a mission and you can hand me over as some kind of payment in advance."

"Mm." Kakashi shrugged. He didn't look happy. But then he didn't look much else either…

Sakura chewed her cheek. "Can you think of something better, Kakashi-senpai?" she asked. It _was _her mission, and he _was _only coming along for extra precaution, but if he felt he could do better, he'd better just spit it out.

"No. It's a good plan," he said.

Sakura waited.

Kakashi started picking at his nails.

_Useless_. Sakura dropped her head into her hands and rubbed her temples. "This is insane… this guy sounds like he's as strong as our hokage. If anything goes wrong-"

"I'll be there to protect you," Kakashi said softly.

Sakura looked up at him. Normally proclamations of this nature would rile her, but in this situation she was grateful for it.

Kakashi sat up with a sigh, elbows rested against his knees. His eye was closed as ran his fingers through the short locks behind his right ear. "You do know why Tsunade wanted to know the status of your chastity, don't you?" he asked lightly, as if very tired.

Sakura flushed hotly. This was not the kind of thing she wanted to discuss with her former teacher. It was bad enough speaking about these things with her own mother. "Mm." Great, now she was resorting to Kakashi-style answers.

"It's unlikely, if Matsura initiates anything with you, that you'll be able to stop him," Kakashi told her evenly. "It's a terrible way to lose your virginity and very traumatic if you have no prior experience."

Unconsciously, Sakura squeezed her thighs a little closer together. "I know that," she said shortly.

His eye opened and he regarded her lazily. "Are you sure you're not a virgin?"

Sakura grinned suddenly. "If my dad heard you saying that to me, you'd be found floating face down in the river the following morning."

Kakashi didn't even blink. He waited for an answer.

Sakura's grin died. "I'm not, alright? I've had sex. There's nothing Matsura has that I haven't seen or touched before. I can handle old perverts leering at me. I can handle _this_."

That came out braver than she actually felt, and Kakashi leaned against the sofa, draping an arm over the back. "I see," was all he said.

Sakura felt thoroughly embarrassed. For a moment she wished he were a complete stranger. Someone who hadn't known her since she was a child, who wouldn't care enough to ask such personal questions. There were just some things she didn't want Kakashi to ever think about her. She wanted him to be proud of her, for being strong and clever and capable. She didn't want him imagining her trapped on a bed as some sweaty old pervert violated her.

She wouldn't let that happen. There was no need for him to worry. But she didn't quite have enough courage to tell him that…

"So who's the lucky guy?"

Sakura blinked. "What?" she asked.

"The guy you're seeing."

"I'm not seeing anyone," Sakura replied.

"Alright then. Who did you have sex with?" he asked quite easily.

Sakura blanched. "You can't ask me something like that!"

"Oh?" He seemed to think about that for a moment. "Ah, perhaps. But since I already asked, would you mind telling me the answer?"

Sakura's fingers flexed so tightly around her tea cup that she heard the porcelain crack tightly. She forcibly relaxed. 'Monstrous' strength could be a bit of handicap when she lost control of her temper. "No one you know," she told Kakashi bluntly.

"Ah…" he nodded in understanding. "When was this then?"

"_Kakashi-sensei!_"

"Sorry, sorry," for the first time that night, he gave her a sheepish smile. "Can you blame me for feeling protective of my favorite student?" He leaned forward and ruffled her hair.

Sakura blew out a huff. "I bet you say that to all your students."

"Well, yes, actually I do," Kakashi admitted. "It's a good motivator. But I only mean it when I say it to you."

Sakura flushed. "Really?" she asked hesitantly, hoping he wasn't joking. Kakashi had a weird kind of humor, so she wouldn't put it past him. "How come?"

"You're smarter, more mature, a fast learner… you don't run off with evil men or perverts, so generally I don't have to worry about you as much." He grinned at her. "And you always leave the green button sweets, which is great, because I love the green button sweets. We compliment each other like that. Normally I'd have to beat Naruto and Sasuke to death to get the green button sweets."

Sakura relaxed slightly. "Thank you, sensei…"

His grin faded to a smile. "I thought I told you to stop calling me that?"

"Yes, but I still feel like I could learn things from you," she said honestly.

Together they mapped out some of the finer points of the mission over the next hour. Kakashi promised to bring most of the necessary provisions if Sakura made preparations to take a few years off her face and body. "You look younger with longer hair," he informed her. "There's a hair salon near Ichiraku that specializes in hair growth. It's expensive, but put it on Tsunade's tab under mission expenses."

"What else?" Sakura asked.

"No make-up," he said. "Wear a plain yukata. You need to look poor and orphan-ish, and a yukata will help diminish your figure somewhat."

"Oh, yes," Sakura said, rolling her eyes. "Because I'm just _so _curvaceous."

"Sakura, big breasts don't a woman make," he lectured, much to her mortification. "From the waist down, no one could mistake you for a child."

His gaze moved down to her lap to prove his point. Sakura squeaked in a way that was probably quite undignified for a jonin. "Stop looking! Dirty old man!"

"Hey," he sounded wounded. "I'm perfectly _clean,_ thank you."

When they'd finally worked everything out and there was nothing left to discuss, they stood and made their way out the building. Despite the circumstances, Sakura couldn't withhold a small smile. "I missed working with you, sensei," she told him as they paused outside the main entrance.

"Oh?" He blinked in surprise.

"Knowing you'll be with me… it eases my mind. I feel safer."

Kakashi gave a helpless shrug. "This is why you were my favorite," he said, reaching out to ruffle her hair again. "You're so much cuter than the other two."

"…I was trying to be serious."

"I know. That made it so much more adorable." He moved down the steps and headed off into the night at a leisurely pace, one hand in his pocket and the other one raised in farewell. "I'll see you tomorrow. At six. Don't be late."

"Hypocrite."

Sakura went to the salon first. They'd shut, but when the owner heard it was for a difficult mission, they let her in and sat her down. Hair growing jutsu felt very much like having a rather overweight person swinging on her hair. It hurt enough to bring tears to her eyes, and Sakura wasn't at all happy with the end effect. With hair fanning around her elbows, it was very much like being twelve again. She was unhappily reminded of the point in the chunin exam when that horrible girl had trapped her by the hair and accused her of caring more about her looks than her purpose as a ninja. It had hurt, because it had been true.

She'd risen to the occasion and proved them all wrong, going wild in her effort to defend her fallen team mates. She'd been so brave and courageous that she'd impressed even herself.

That idiot Sasuke just _had _to have been unconscious for the ordeal, hadn't he?

After tying her hair in a knot at her nape, Sakura told the stylist to send the bill to Tsunade and staggered off to find the nearest bar. After half a bottle of sake she was looking around room, searching for a familiar face. There were none.

Good.

Spinning on her stool, Sakura threw up her hands and swayed delicately. "I have till six to lose my virginity," she slurred. "Is anyone inter… in… intertrest… is anyone going to help me?"

* * *

TBC 


	2. In which Sakura is late

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* * *

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_Tell me your secrets and ask me your questions,_

_Oh let's go back to the start…_

* * *

Shikamaru gave a jaw-popping yawn as he rubbed the back of his neck. "I think I'm going to call it a night," he said, and started to rise. 

Ino's hand snapped out, dragging him back down into their booth. "You're paying for the next round, remember?"

"I don't want another round," he said plaintively.

Ino didn't care. "You're still paying for it."

"Hey, it's eleven o'clock. If I'm not back before midnight, my mom will have me whipped," he explained, giving her a shrug.

Chouji snorted over bag of chips. "I think she already has."

Ino nodded her agreement. "You're not getting free drinks out of us this time, Shika," she told him firmly. "Go buy us the next round, then you can go."

Shikamaru sighed. A true genius would have found an ingenious way to escape by now… but sadly, one bottle of sake and a fizzy drink was enough to bring him down to the level of the average moron. "Alright, alright…" he started to stand.

He froze the moment a familiar voice rose above the general hum of conversation in the bar.

"I have till six to lose my virginity. Is anyone inter… in… intertrest… is anyone going to help me?"

Ino shot out of her seat to peer over the side of their booth in aghast shock. "Sakura!"

Shikamaru joined her just in time to see said girl slide straight off her bar stool and onto the floor in a dignified heap. Chouji leaned out of the booth far enough to regard the prone girl. "Sakura's a virgin?" he asked lightly, then resumed eating.

Ino grinned nastily, her fingers curling into fists. "I _knew_ it!" she hissed gleefully. "I _knew_ she was frigid!"

Shikamaru looked on in bemusement. Sakura didn't _look _particularly frigid at that moment. "Maybe you should take her home, Ino?" he pointed out. "The dogpile is going to start any moment now and then we'll never dig her out…"

"Hah," Ino flicked her glamorous hair back over her shoulder. "As if Sakura could attract anything more than a swarm of flies." Even so, Ino was well aware that half the men in the bar were converging on the drunken girl, ready to help her up and offer her more drinks if necessary. Ino rolled her eyes. _Typical_. She only hoped that Sakura was too plastered to be able to remember this come morning. Having the power to seduce half a bar with a single badly formed sentence was a power that Sakura need not know she possessed.

Jumping out of her seat, Ino began beating a path through the men to help her rival up off the floor. "Hey, Sakura. Can't hold your drink, I see?" she announced brightly as she pulled the girl up by her arm.

"Blergh…" Sakura shrank away from her. "What are you doing here?"

"You looked like you needed help," Ino remarked dryly as she levered Sakura towards the door.

The drunken girl eyed her blearily. "Thanks for the offer, Ino-pig… but you're a bit too female…"

Shikamaru shook his head as the two girls tottered out into the street. "Who knew Sakura was wild enough to get drunk alone?" he remarked to Chouji. "Anyway, I'm off home. I'll see you tomorrow."

"See ya."

Genius Shikamaru struck again. This was another night he'd avoided paying for his round. He'd have to thank Sakura in the morning…

Stepping out of the bar into the cool night air, Shikamaru turned in the direction of home. He was about to move off when someone taller and broader suddenly stepped into his path, blocking out the street lights and lanterns to cast a long shadow over him. Shadows didn't scare Shikamaru though, and he looked up to meet the one-eyed gaze of his accoster.

"Shikamaru-kun."

"Kakashi-san."

Oh, great. Just what he needed: another delay. His mother was _so _going to have his head...

* * *

Sakura learned several very important facts come sun rise. 

1. She had no tolerance for alcohol.

2. She seemed to forget this every time she got depressed.

3. Ino was a rotten caretaker. She'd bundled Sakura into bed the way most people threw banana skins in the trash and had walked off with Sakura's favorite pair of shoes with a vague promise of returning them.

4. Her virginity was, sadly, still intact.

5. It was six-thirty.

Sakura scrambled out of bed so fast that she was already brushing her teeth by the time the head rush hit her. She blinked in confusion at her long hair before her memory supplied her with the necessary details of the salon trip last night. She didn't know if it made her look younger. She'd have to ask Kakashi.

Stumbling back into her room, Sakura moved to her wardrobe and flung her clothes aside in search of something suitably old and 'orphan-ish'. She had three yukatas to her name, two of which were heavily patterned to suit her colorful tastes. The third was the one she wore whenever she caught the flu. It was brown, worn bare in patches and had been with her since she was ten.

Irritatingly, it still fit. (Albeit, it showed more ankle than it used to.)

Sakura flung it on haphazardly and shucked her feet into a pair of old sandals that were hiding beneath her boots. Beneath her yukata went the shuriken halter around her thigh (she knew Kakashi would probably confiscate this, but she refused to travel without it), and around her middle went her second best white obi. She wouldn't normally have bothered, and she preferred to avoid obis all together as they had a habit of making her even more shapeless than she already felt, but in this case, anything that hid her narrow waist was welcome.

Unfortunately, she lacked the necessary number of hands to tie it properly, so bundled it over her shoulder and headed out to the designated meeting point with Kakashi. She stopped long enough at the janitor's door to tell him she would be leaving for a week or so, and could he possibly be a sweetheart and make sure no one broke in?

Sakura felt quite self-conscious as she hurried through the streets to the city gates. So maybe she had toned down the vanity problem after the chunin exam, but couldn't a girl have a little pride in her appearance? The yukata was just embarrassingly shabby…

Kakashi, unsurprisingly, wasn't at the gates when Sakura arrived. She looked around anxiously, trying to catch her breath before flopping down onto the earth in relief. A whole hour late and she'd _still_ gotten there earlier than him. Although he didn't have to know that. She had every intention of making him think she'd been waiting since six o'clock. Sakura wasn't beneath a guilt trip.

Ten minutes later, the air flickered before Sakura and Kakashi appeared in his typical whirl of smoke. "Yo." He raised a hand in greeting. The other was employed in holding up the latest copy of _Icha Icha Chaos_.

"You're late," she accused.

"I'm not," he rebuked. "I was here at six thirty. I was just off looking for you."

Damn. "Ah…"

Sakura picked herself up from the dusty floor and held out her obi to Kakashi. "Would you mind helping me with this?"

Kakashi accepted the garment slowly, is if he was picking up a dead snake. "Right… how exactly does it go on?"

"Ever seen a butterfly's tongue?"

"Yes."

"Something like that. Just keep rolling."

After several minutes of twirling and tugging, they managed to tie off the obi in some sort of semblance of a real bow. Kakashi stroked his masked chin thoughtfully. "Well, I doubt it'll be setting trends, but at least it won't come off."

Sakura was breathing with slight difficulty. "No, it won't. Ever."

"You ok?"

Hardly. "I'm fine…" She just had to take a leaf out of Lee's book and pretend this was some sort of amazing new endurance training. She turned to face Kakashi and held out her arms. "How do I look?" she asked.

He looked her up and down, sighed, and shoved his hands into his pockets. He gave her a frank look even Naruto would have been able to read.

Sakura gave a pained smile. "Good" She carefully appraised Kakashi's own appearance. "You look suitably… um… the same as usual."

That wasn't quite true. His Konoha uniform had been traded in favor of something plainer and less conspicuous, but still made it rather obvious that he was a ninja. The hitai-ate had been replaced with a leather eyepatch that let his hair fray in a more relaxed way around his face, though it made the scar running down his right brow and cheek more visible. The infamous mask was still in place, but the flak jacket was gone. His shirt had been traded for one with short sleeves and no insignias, and he'd covered his arms in what looked suspiciously like Anbu gloves and arm guards. Everything else was pretty much the same.

"You only have about three outfits, don't you?" she guessed, realizing he was actually wearing some of the clothes he'd word to the Third's funeral – the only time she'd seen him out of uniform.

Well… there had been that time when she'd knocked on his door to find him in a pair pajamas with patterned dog bones on them…

"Is there any need for more than three?" he asked.

"Well, maybe civilian clothes would have done better…?"

Kakashi shook his head. "I still need to look like a fighter. Matsura will know the minute he sees me that I'm a ninja. If I'm attempting to look like a civilian, he'll just be suspicious of me."

"Wait," Sakura held up a hand. "Won't he know I'm a ninja too?"

"Not with those shoes," Kakashi looked pointedly at her feet. Sakura realized she tended to totter more than sneak when she was wearing them. "Even so, we'll say you're a dancer. That should explain away any exceptional grace you demonstrate. You'll have to lose the shurikens though."

"I'm not traveling defenseless," she argued.

He shrugged uncaringly and looked ahead to the road that wound off into the trees before them. Like the lazy gentleman he was, he spread his arm to the path briefly before letting it drop back to his side. "After you, miss."

Sakura tottered all of three steps before she gave up, kicked her sandals off, and resumed stomping away down the beaten dirt road. Kakashi followed at an easy pace, nose buried deeply in his book.

It was just like the old days.

Sans the fox and the Uchiha. And a lot less conversation and heap more anxiety. Sakura looked back at her masked partner and chewed her lip. He was still reading, and would have looked completely oblivious to his surroundings did he not keep miraculously stepping around potholes and rocks. Something Sakura should have been keeping her mind on, she discovered, as her soft bare foot landed on a particular sharp pebble.

Sakura hissed and froze. Kakashi pulled to a stop just behind her. "Something wrong?"

"No…" she let out her breath in a whoosh and continued on, valiantly trying not to limp. The last thing she wanted to do was show weakness in front of Kakashi. He'd trained her. She didn't want him to look at her in disappointment because she'd stepped on a stupid piece of dirt!

They walked on in silence, with only the occasional, "You alright?", "I'm fine," and "Turn left here," to break up the monotony. Even so, seven words in three hours felt a little stilted.

Occasionally they passed other people on the road. The first was a farmer with a horse and a cart of cabbages. He nodded politely to Sakura (who smiled sweetly and nodded in return) and bowed a little deeper for Kakashi (who ignored the man much the same way he ignored everything else).

The second person they passed was an old woman with a cane. She glowered disapprovingly as she hobbled past, although Sakura couldn't be sure what she was offended by. Maybe she didn't like ninjas? Or scruffy orphan girls? Or maybe she was just old fashioned and didn't like seeing a young girl and a grown man without a chaperone?

In all likeliness, it was probably Kakashi's book.

Whatever.

_Nuts to you, madam, _Sakura thought rudely in the woman's wake.

The third person who passed them was another farmer sitting atop a large cart that was loaded with bales of hay and boxes of apples. As he'd been going in the same direction, he pulled his two horses to a stop beside the traveling pair. "Do you need a lift?"

Sakura and Kakashi looked at each other. What could be the harm? And Sakura's feet _did _hurt…

"Thank you," Kakashi said graciously and helped Sakura up onto the hay bales while he himself found a seat on the apple crates.

The farmer snapped the reins and they moved off. Sakura bounced about slightly on her mattress of straw and stretched her feet out before her. Below her, Kakashi engaged his book again. From her vantage point, she could actually make out the words over his shoulder.

She'd always been curious as to what was in these _Icha Icha_ books that could captivate her teacher's interest so completely, but she'd never quite been brave enough to buy her own copy to find out. Naruto had gotten free editions from the author himself, and it was through him that she had an idea of what to expect. But still… it would be a good opportunity to sneak a peek without anyone being any the wiser. She leant forward imperceptibly and squinted.

_Michiko's heart raced. Her soul soared and blossomed like a budding rose in a midsummer heat. She'd been waiting for this her whole life! "Take me!" she cried wantonly to Jiro. "Enough games! I don't care who sees us! I must have you now, or else this desire will burn me up from the inside!" She tore her blouse asunder in her haste to remove all barriers between them before wrenching Jiro's head down to her chest to lap at her-_

Kakashi turned the page. Sakura let out a mewl of protest, far too close to his ear to be missed. Ever so slowly, the older jonin turned his head and regarded her through a hooded eye. Sakura was staring resolutely at the passing fields as if she'd been doing nothing but for the last five minutes.

A long pause stretched out.

Softly, Kakashi sighed and shifted around slightly, angling his body to face her so that his book was not. He resumed reading and Sakura had to find her own entertainment.

Counting trees grew old rather quickly. The sky was too blue to allow for any cloud watching. The farmer was slightly deaf, so any attempts at conversation with him generally didn't progress much beyond, "Pardon?"

Sakura turned her attention back to Kakashi. "Can I have some water?"

He wordlessly reached into his pack and tossed her a clear bottle. Sakura drank more than she needed, mostly because she had nothing else to do. If Naruto was there, he would probably be occupying her with inane chatter and hyperactive games of eye spy. He used to annoy her greatly, but on her first mission without the blonde bombshell, she realized how much she missed his comforting, if not pointless conversations.

Sometimes she regretted graduating. It seemed that she'd effectively killed Team Seven the day she'd become a jonin…

Sakura looked at her former teacher who was giggling naughtily to his book. Sometimes she worried about him. Not about his sanity – that clearly a lost cause. However, there were some days when she thought back to Team Seven's early days and she wondered if the choices his students had made had… _hurt_ him in some way. But he was so distant it was hard to tell what he thought or felt. If each of his students systematically leaving him for stronger teachers had hurt him, then he did a good job of hiding it.

It was entirely possible that he just didn't care.

Plus, he was busy with his new team now. Why would he bother with the defunct Team Seven when there was a new generation of warriors to train?

Somehow, Sakura couldn't help but feel like a child who'd been kicked out of home by a father who was now too busy raising a new family to care for the older one. They'd been usurped. Kakashi would never be anything more to them than a teacher and a commander. He didn't want to be anything more, apparently.

Sakura felt a heavy pang of nostalgia for the days when they'd been a whole team. It just didn't feel right that they'd all split up and gone their different ways, but it seemed like she was the only one who felt this way.

All the talk and focus on teamwork had been what had bound the three together in a way that some might have called… unhealthy. Even after all the betrayal and attempts on each other's lives, it couldn't be said that Team Seven didn't love one another. They were inseparable. But it seemed that the moment that there was no official 'team', the man who'd inspired it all was saying, "Goodbye, sunshine! You're on your own now. I have better things to do!"

Sakura shouldn't have been too surprised. Kakashi had friends – people he'd probably known all his life – but he tended to treat them as nothing more than casual acquaintances. It seemed to make sense that the students he taught would grow up to be treated the same, if not even more distantly.

Why had she expected more?

So Sakura dropped the subject with a weary heart and lay back on the hay to watch the tops of the trees roll by. She tried to put Kakashi's distant personality out of her mind, but that only opened the way to dwelling on the mission ahead. Sakura shuddered despite the cold day. Her half-baked plan to lose her virginity last night in a whirlwind of passion and alcohol had backfired somewhat. Not that losing her chastity to a complete stranger in a whiffy bar was her idea of a good time, but compared to what the mission had in store for her…? Sakura would take drunk beer patrons over dangerous perverts any day.

But it wasn't Sakura's place to complain. Tsunade had often explained to her what it meant to be a kunoichi.

"Just like any other ninja, your body is a tool," she'd said. "Women are looked down upon because of their physical weakness in comparison to men, but a kunoichi's body can be a weapon greater than that of any man. You can use it to run, jump and kill… but you can also use it to entice and distract. Mm… I'll probably explain this in more detail in another lesson."

Sakura had yet to receive that lesson, so she was still pretty clueless as to what enticing and distracting required. The knew the basic mechanics of sex. She _had _seen naked men before (it was pretty hard to avoid in a hospital), but she often struggled to figure out exactly how those floppy bits of flesh accomplished anything.

Sakura glanced across at Kakashi. He sat with one leg stretched out and one bent to rest his elbow against. Without thinking, Sakura's gaze dropped between those legs and she idly wondered just how big-

_No! Stop thinking about Kakashi-sensei's floppy bits!_

Flustered, she looked back out across the fields and inwardly berated herself. How the hell was she supposed to carry out this kind of mission when the mere thought of _those_ places had her in a fluster? How was she supposed to cope with a super pervert when she couldn't even cope with her thoughts?

Some of those thoughts must have translated onto her face, because Kakashi chose that moment to speak up. "Thinking about the mission?"

Sakura nodded mutely, hoping to high heaven that he hadn't noticed her staring at his crotch.

"Ah," Kakashi suddenly laid down his book on his thigh and reached a hand into his pack. "I forget to mention… I got this off Tsunade-sama this morning."

He tossed a clear glass tube to her, the kind often used to hold perfume samples. Somehow Sakura didn't think it was just plain perfume though. "What is it?" she asked.

"Something to ensure your safety," he said. "Tsunade said you'd recognize it."

Sakura pulled the stopper off the tube and took a curious sniff. Nothing. That could only mean one thing. "It's scentless," she said, "meaning, it's meant to go undetected. A poison? For Matsura?"

Kakashi nodded. "According to Tsunade-sama, one drop can knock out a horse for a few hours. It has a bitter taste, so the moment the victim receives a dose, he'll know about it, but Tsunade assured me that it works fast to make up for that."

"Oh," Sakura murmured. Suddenly this mission didn't seem so bad. "So I should just put it in his food or something?"

Kakashi said nothing.

"His drink?" Sakura guessed again, in a small voice.

"Sakura… I doubt there's much you could slip into this guy's food and drink without him knowing."

Sakura wanted to pull her hair. "Kakashi-sensei… don't tell me…?" At his blank, yet ever so slightly guilty look, she groaned aloud. "Oh, _god!"_

"I'm sorry," he apologized. "It's the only way I can think of."

"I AM NOT SMEARING DRUGS ON MY BODY SO SOME OLD FART CAN LICK THEM OFF!"

Birds took flight from the nearby trees as the horses whinnied and pranced in fright. The farmer looked a little flustered while he attempted to calm his animals, obviously not being quite deaf enough to miss that rather loud comment. Kakashi remained unmoved and unfazed her outburst. He'd heard worse. This probably only reached an 8.5 on the Sakura Tantrum scale.

Soon the local wildlife had calmed down and the horses were back on track. Sakura flopped further back on her bale of hay and crossed her arms over her chest. She glared at Kakashi with venom, waiting for his response.

"Don't you take your job seriously as a ninja?" he demanded coldly, surprisingly Sakura with the harshness of his tone. "You don't want to do something because it makes you uncomfortable? It offends your sensibilities? Then why did you accept this mission? Why did you even become a ninja?"

Sakura was twelve years old again, being criticized harshly by her teacher for caring too much about Sasuke.

"Do you think that you're the first girl who's had to use her body as a means to an end?" The lazy anger still encompassed his words.

Sakura clenched her fists. "It's alright for _you_!" she snapped. "No one's ever going to ask you to lie down and let some disgusting old man violate you for the sake of a mission! I'm supposed to just accept it because I'm a girl – because I'm weak – and this seems to be the _only _way I could _possibly_ be of use!"

Kakashi said nothing.

"Stupid men…" she seethed. "If you weren't all so stupid, and weak-willed, we'd be able to do this mission properly! With kunais and jutsus – not breasts and ass!" Some part of her was fairly mortified for saying that. Another, much larger part was quite satisfied, especially when Kakashi lowered his gaze.

"I know," he said quietly. "It's not right. It's not fair. But it has to be done. If not by you then someone else. This is the safest plan, I assure you."

Sakura turned away unhappily with every intention of freezing her former teacher out for the rest of the journey.

"But you're wrong about one thing," he continued.

Sakura ground her teeth. "Oh?"

"I have been asked to sleep with disgusting old men," he said lightly. "And what's more, I did it without complaint."

Sakura's mouth fell open softly and she cast a startled gaze at her teacher. The embarrassment she felt at such an admission was outweighed by the horror. "What?"

Something that could have been regret flashed through Kakashi's eye before he abruptly opened his book again and began to read. "That was all a long time ago, though," he said in a final tone.

End of discussion.

Sakura swallowed hard. That had been a little too much information for her taste, but she couldn't help but feel slightly honored (and appalled) that he'd been willing to tell her. And the farmer. Although Sakura would overlook that as the man probably hadn't heard.

So it wasn't just the kunoichi who got used in this way. Why did that surprise her? After all, she knew perfectly well that nothing ever ran in clear lines of black and white. Not all men desired women, and allowances had to be made. But now Sakura felt guilty. Here she was complaining rather loudly about the injustice of her body being used this way, and there Kakashi was, already used and discarded and silently accepting it as his duty.

"I'm sorry," she murmured.

He shook his head but didn't look away from the book. "It doesn't matter now. I just wanted you to understand that I know what it's like." He gave a great sigh. "But anyway. You said yourself that you have experience, so at least you won't be heading into unknown territory here. Just put up with the nasty man for a while and then we can go home."

Sakura would have liked to think of it that way, had she not completely lied about the whole experience thing.

She had nothing to prepare with.

She _was _going into unknown territory.

Another few miles down the road, and Kakashi finally spoke up again. "Food?"

"Yes, please," Sakura held out her hand and took the food parcel he gave her. Unwrapping the napkin, she gasped in delight. "Mochi! Yum. Love mochi."

There were six. She stuffed two in her mouth straight away and offered Kakashi one. For a moment he looked as if he was about to accept it, but then he dropped his hand. "I already ate before we came out."

"That doesn't mean you're not hungry," she pointed out. She hadn't missed that eager hand.

"Well…"

"You still won't eat in front of me?"

Kakashi looked up, about to retort, when his eye widened suddenly and he pointed behind her. "Gai!"

"Where!" Sakura simultaneously ducked and twisted around to see where he was pointing.

There was no one there.

When she turned back, three of the mochi were missing from her hand and Kakashi was chewing delicately under his mask, eye back on his book. "Delicious," he muffled.

"…that was incredibly cheap," she told him, thoroughly annoyed that he'd managed to outwit her. For a brief moment there she'd thought she was about to get a glimpse of what lay beneath the mask.

"A ninja must use whatever tactic necessary to win," he retorted cheerfully.

_Is that so? _"Ah… I guess," She finished off the last mochi before rubbing her hands together and folding the napkin up. "Well, I understand why you don't want to show anyone. I mean, if it really is as hairy and discolored as they say, I'd want to wear a mask too…"

Kakashi stopped chewing. Sakura watched the horses, purposefully ignoring him.

But he didn't rise to the bait; he just went back to his book.

Not one who liked to be called on her bluffs, she continued nonchalantly. "Naruto reckoned it was because you had thick lips."

"Did he now?" drawled Kakashi.

"But I said that was ridiculous. You'd see the bulge under the mask!" Sakura feigned a laugh. "So then Sasuke began to think it was because you had buck teeth. So, you remember that time we gave you that clay sandwich by accident?"

"Um…"

"Well, it wasn't an accident. We examined the teeth marks later, and it turns out you have fairly straight and even teeth," she went on. "So we thought… if there's nothing wrong with his teeth, and his lips are normal size… what could be so bad that he has to hide it beneath a mask?"

"And?" Kakashi was looking at her.

Sakura paused dramatically. "A hare lip!"

Kakashi blinked ever so slowly.

"Am I right?" she asked.

He sighed. "You'll never know…" And then he went back to Icha Icha Chaos.

Sakura slapped her hands against the hay. "No – I know! It's because you have zits! It's zits, isn't it?"

"Why don't you just take bets with each other?" he asked dryly.

"Oh, we do," she said, nodding. "Like I said, Sasuke bet on the buck teeth, Naruto's _positive_ about the thick lips and I… um…"

"You what?" he quirked an eyebrow at her.

She'd bet on the most probable outcome – that he was moderately attractive looking, judging from the responses of the few people who _did _get to glimpse his face (people who were often too busy blushing and swooning to form a proper description for the curious trio). Although that was a little embarrassing to admit. "I… bet that you had a really bad wart…" The thought had crossed her mind.

He considered this carefully, before shrugging and resuming with his book. Sakura clucked her tongue. "Can I see it?" she asked.

"See what?"

"The wart."

"There is no wart."

"Oh, just admit it. You're ugly. That's why you don't want to show anyone," she admonished him. "You can show me. I'm very good at keeping my reactions in check – I won't recoil in disgust or anything. And besides, I'm about to get intimate with an old man - I could do with a good shock beforehand to prepare myself."

Kakashi remained unmoved.

"I won't tell Sasuke or Naruto," she offered.

He didn't budge.

"Well, I might _mention_ it, but I won't describe it."

No reply.

"Please?"

Nothing.

"Pretty please? Pretty, pretty please?" She clasped her hands together into a beg. "I'll… give you a massage if you let me see."

He tilted his head. "A massage?"

"Sure!" she enthused. "At the hospital I'm pretty famous in the physiotherapy unit. Everyone's always asking me to kneed their corns and poke their love handles. I'm the second best masseuse after Tsunade herself – and even then patients like me better because they think she's a little too rough."

"Well," Kakashi stroked his chin through his mask. "I don't know about love handles or corns, but you can do my shoulders."

Sakura nearly flew into a delirium. "You're going to show it to me!" she squeaked.

"Just a little look," he responded coolly.

Sakura tried to calm down to match his austere composure… and failed spectacularly. She'd been waiting for this moment for five years! Her excitement could hardly be contained. She almost missed his hand moving to his face, gripping the hem of the cloth rather uncaringly, about to drag it down from his face…

"Wait!" Sakura leapt forward at the last moment, scrambling down onto his crate of apples to seize his hand and prevent it from moving. A little bit more nose had been exposed, but he was still covered. He blinked at her in confusion.

"What is it?" he asked.

Sakura didn't know. She was waiting for something. Possibly a fanfare and a drum roll. You didn't wait five years to see someone's face and then have them whip it out recklessly like it was nothing. It was all about the anticipation! Why blow a spectacular build up with such a rash finale?

"Do it slower," she told him, releasing his hand. "There's no way you're rushing this for me."

He gave her a hooded look. "You want me to striptease too? That might cost extra. Love handles may have to be poked-"

"Sensei, _please_." She pouted gently. The same pout that often got Naruto stammering and made Sasuke do whatever the hell she wanted if only she just _stopped_. It had been quite effective on Kakashi too in the past.

"That was only cute when you were twelve," he told her.

The pout was joined by wide, shiny eyes and tilted eyebrows. Puppies everywhere would look at her in disgust.

And Kakashi wasn't quite as immune as he thought. With a sigh, he nodded. "Fine," he said.

True to his word, he released the edge of the mask and grasped his eyepatch. It came off over his head with a gentle tug, exposing his sharingan, and with slow, deliberate movements, he folded the strip of leather and pressed it into Sakura's hand. The girl blushed. He really _was _doing a facial striptease for her!

When his index finger hooked into his mask again, Sakura felt a pang of momentary panic. What if she was disappointed by what she saw? What if she'd been imagining his face for so long that the real thing just didn't live up to those expectations? What if he really was ugly?

But before she could wrestle up any more doubts, the mask was tucked beneath his chin and her teacher's face was bare for the first time since she'd known him.

Everything went oddly quiet in Sakura's head.

With a mild frown, she reached out slowly and sunk her fingers into the hair on either side of his face. She ignored the peculiar look he gave her and simply started brushing her fingers through the coarse locks, arranging them around his face. Her cool fingertips glanced across his scalp, as she combed hair that probably hadn't been near a brush in over thirteen years. When she was done she sat back and examined him.

Then laughter bubbled up inside her like water from a spring. Color exploded onto her cheeks and she jabbed a finger at him in childish glee. "Hah!" she cried loudly. "I _knew _it!"

Kakashi was nonplussed. "Knew what?"

"I knew it, I knew it, _I knew it!"_ She was up, scrambling across the hay bales to grasp the cart driver by the shoulders. "Farmer-san, I'm right, right?" she asked loudly. "Isn't that man back there the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?"

The driver peeped over his shoulder curiously at the girl and then Kakashi, who was looking like he wanted to fall off the cart and let the earth swallow him up. The old farmer blushed slightly and turned back to the road, muttering something to himself.

Sakura hopped back down to Kakashi's crate, maintaining her rather uncanny impression of a certain blonde idiot. "See, see, see!" she settled down before him. "_AND _you _do _have a wart!"

"It's a beauty spot," he corrected calmly.

Sakura poked it happily where it sat three centimeters to the left of his nose. "And it's _so cute_!" she snickered. "Now why would you want to cover _this_ up?"

Kakashi just looked at her blankly, the same look he'd given her a hundred times in the past, but this time it meant something different. His lips were quirked in a slight smile. How many times had he smiled in the past and she'd just completely missed it? "I have allergies," he said with a shrug.

Sakura devoured the way his lips moved when he spoke, despite the fact that what had just spilt from them was a complete lie. "If you had allergies, you wouldn't be sitting amongst all this hay," she reminded him.

"Ah… well, I'm a hypochondriac, you see. All these invisible germs…"

Probably another lie. Sakura didn't think he'd ever tell her _why_ he wore a mask. But for now she was just satisfied to know what lay behind it. Breaking out into a grin, she said, "Thank you, sensei."

"It's really nothing, Sakura," he offered, a little sheepish. It was strange seeing the whole expression after living with just a smaller corner of it for so long. But the whole picture made the fake smiles and grins just that bit more obvious.

Sakura shook her head. "No, it's everything," she said. "Thank you."

His smile relaxed into something genuine. Sakura near burst out into a tizzy all over again. His smile was just as lazy and indolent as his eyes.

He was so unbelievably _Kakashi_.

A beat passed where they just smiled daftly at each other.

_He really is quite handsome… possibly more so than Sasuke…_

"Ok!" She clapped her hands to break the spell and moved to sit on the hay bale. "If you want a massage, put your back here," she said, patting the edge of the bale between her knees.

Up went the mask, out came the book, and within moments everything was as it was. Only now a secret smile was playing gently on Sakura's lips.

Just _wait_ till she got home and told Naruto and Sasuke about this! If becoming the first jonin hadn't been enough to make them sick with envy, then this would definitely finish them off.

* * *

TBC 


	3. In which a lesson is imparted

_

* * *

_

_We don't know what we're fighting for,_

_They tell me it's a worthy cause,_

_No cause could be so worthy._

* * *

The massage, Sakura felt, didn't last nearly as long as it should have. For a start, twenty minutes was barely enough time to scratch the surface of the extent of knotted muscles in Kakashi's shoulders. Whether these knots were due to a hard life of kicking ass or just because he spent too much time reading in such an appalling posture, Sakura didn't know. Nevertheless, she advised him not to slouch so much. 

There was something awfully relaxing about kneading her fingers against someone else's muscles. Her inner masochist enjoyed feeling the crunches and clicks under her hands and listening to the pleasured/pained groans from her patients. Not that Kakashi ever groaned. He continued reading blithely while she attacked his shoulders, with only the occasional sigh to let her know that she'd hit just the right spot. Any kind of approval from Kakashi, no matter how subtle, was something to be treasured, and Sakura couldn't help but smile. Concentrating on straightening out his muscles helped keep her mind off the steadily approaching mission as well.

But all too soon they ran out of road. With the farmer needing to head south to a nearby market town, and with her and Kakashi needing to continue east, they parted ways. They thanked the man profusely for carrying them so far, but he seemed only too glad to see the back of them. Apparently, Sakura's comment about smearing drugs on her body had shattered their fragile rapport.

This was understandable though…

The two jonins pressed on into the forest. Sakura moved easily over the uneven ground, stepping over fallen rocks and logs as if she was stepping over her own laundry back home. But it was only a matter of time before Kakashi brought them both to a stop.

"You'll have to put your shoes on," he told her. "It seems that we're ahead of schedule and only about three hours away from the compound now. It wouldn't surprise me if he has sentries posted this far out, so we'd better assume he has. The mission starts here."

Sakura tried to quell the queasy rise in her stomach. She said nothing as she pulled on her too-small sandals and removed the shuriken holster from around her thigh. She watched mournfully as it disappeared into Kakashi's pack. Now she had only her bare hands and jutsu to defend herself – not defenses to be taken lightly, but _still_. She would have preferred something sharp and pointy in her hand when confronting this notorious pervert.

"Are you alright?" Kakashi asked.

Sakura nodded staunchly, aware that she was probably pale enough to match her obi. She set off through the trees again at a slightly more halting pace than before. Kakashi put away his book and followed her with his hands thrust deep into his pockets. Sakura glanced back at him every now and then to make sure he was still keeping up (even though he'd have to be some kind of cripple not be able to keep up while she wore _those_ shoes). It was amazing. Even when he put the book down and paid attention, he _still _looked as though he was a million miles away.

The air in the forest was uncomfortably warm and sticky, and the humidity was doing strange things to her elbow length hair. If it wasn't curling and itching down the back of her yukata, it was flapping uselessly in her face. Her walking was hampered by badly fit shoes, and her feet were beginning to hurt all over again. The fact that she was walking ever closer to the most horrific mission she'd ever been given did nothing to alleviate her mood.

Each step brought another black cloud to accumulate above her head.

"Sakura?"

"What?" she snapped irritably, and immediately regretted it. None of this was Kakashi's fault. She had no right to take it out on him, and the last thing she needed right then was to alienate the one person who was trying to support her. She turned slowly and let out a deep calming breath. "What is it?" she asked more softly.

If Kakashi noticed her black mood, he was wise enough not to mention it. "We need a break," he said simply.

They found a reasonably dry tree base to sit against; one with such large knotted roots that twisted out of the ground so thickly that each was like a small tuffet. Kakashi handed her another small food parcel and they ate in relative silence. His back was turned to her, yet again offering her no glimpse of his face. It confused her as to _why _he hid his face from her now, especially after just showing it to her a few hours ago.

She didn't have the presence of mind right then to question his habits. The mission was occupying too much space in her head to leave room for small mysteries like masks and the indolent smiles hidden behind them.

Kakashi finished his food first (he'd always been a fast eater) and leaned back against the tree in contemplative silence as he waited for her to do the same. But he was in for a long wait. Sakura's appetite had long since vanished, leaving her picking at the simple rice balls with a glum expression.

"You have to eat."

Sakura pulled a face at his words. She _knew_ that. A ninja needed to eat properly to maintain energy and stamina. A starving ninja didn't last nearly as long as a nourished one. Problem was, she thought she would actually be physically sick if she swallowed another bite. Her stomach was churning almost as much as her head.

Maybe Kakashi sensed this, because he didn't push the subject as he normally might have done. Instead he sat up slowly and stretched his arms briefly out before him. "Do you want to go over the mission again?" he asked quietly.

That was the last thing she wanted to do. She'd rather stick her fingers in her ears and start humming the Fire country's national anthem than think about what she was about to do. But that wouldn't have been very mature or professional for a jonin. This was her very first mission with her mentor as her partner… there was no way she was going to turn chicken in front of him.

So she nodded stiffly and turned towards him as he began laying out the plan.

"First thing's first, we get inside," he said, ticking off his index finger. "It's likely that we'll be intercepted before we arrive at the compound where we'll either be escorted the rest of the way or simply driven off."

Sakura dearly hoped the latter would happen.

"The story is that I'm a rogue nin working on behalf of a rich family from one of the developed villages further east. I've come to negotiate for his cooperation in an operation of dubious legal stature taking place next month. I'll claim that I desperately need his expertise and experience in the matter. You're a girl I picked up in one of the war ravaged areas of the Mist country. You have no parents, no money, nothing. Got that."

"Got it," she mumbled, staring at the ground while her fingers pried bark off the tree roots she sat on.

"You don't need to know the details of the mission I'm negotiating about," Kakashi carried on evenly. "That's for me to worry about. What _you _have to concern yourself with is Matsura. He's strong, experienced, and he has a keen eye by all accounts. I know you're a very capable jonin, Sakura, but I want you to be extra careful around this guy. I have a feeling that we'll be separated for most of our time within the compound. When either one of us is keeping him occupied, the other will carry out a discreet search for the heirloom. There will be other men around the buildings, so we'll have to move with care. If you're caught, you know the procedure."

"Curl up and pretend to be dead?" she guessed wearily.

"Run," he corrected. "As fast as you can. And scream, if possible, just to let me know I should start running too. Now, the object we're looking for is-"

"A vase painted with real gold and inset with a single blue diamond," Sakura rattled off grumpily. She'd memorized this the night before. She knew Kakashi was only double-checking, but her nerves were making her impatient as well as cranky. "The client says we'll recognize it because it has a picture of a cockerel on the side."

"Right." Kakashi nodded. "Though it wouldn't surprise me if the diamond has already been pried out… but that's none of our business." His masked face tilted towards her, but Sakura was glaring too hard at her knees to meet his gaze. "Are you sure you're ready for this?"

Sakura threw up her hands. "Yes!" she snapped in exasperation. "God, why do you keep asking me that?"

Kakashi didn't respond. He simply turned away, elbows resting on his thighs as he twirled a short lock of hair around his finger. Such nonchalance annoyed Sakura. Her mouth was saying one thing, but her heart was screaming another. She didn't really want him to stop asking if she was ready… she just wanted him to take her home.

Sakura crumpled slightly. "I'm sorry… I'm just a bit nervous," she apologized quietly. "I don't mean to keep snapping at you."

He shrugged. "It's perfectly understandable."

"It's just that I've never done anything like this before," she gushed, feeling her cheeks heat up again.

"There's always a first time," he replied coolly. "It doesn't get any easier though."

Sakura looked up at him, pleading. "I'm not even sure what I'm supposed to do."

Kakashi blinked at her. The hand fell away from his hair and he seemed to be holding his breath. Suddenly he released it as he spoke. "Well… you said yourself that you had experience. So just draw from that, I guess."

Sakura wanted to bite her own tongue off. She didn't have _any _experience! But she couldn't very well tell Kakashi that or else he'd know that she'd lied in Tsunade's office. And while lying to her betters wasn't something to lose sleep over, she knew that the moment she confessed to Kakashi, he would probably send her straight back home. And while that too was an attractive prospect, she didn't think she'd ever be able to live it down. She could already imagine the gossip it would generate (most of which would probably come straight from the Ino-Pig's mouth).

_They had to send her back because she didn't have the guts to go through with it._

_Doesn't know how to please a man._

_Shouldn't have made her a jonin._

_Imagine! Still a virgin at seventeen! It's laughable._

Biting down on her lip to stifle the dreaded groan that threatened to escape her, Sakura buried her head in her arms. She was in way over her head. She'd never even gotten around to getting her first kiss yet. And now she was supposed to be inviting strange men to touch and taste her body. She gave an involuntary shudder.

"You've still got the drug, right?" Kakashi asked her casually, as if he hadn't noticed the way she was huddled in a ball and rocking to herself.

"Right here." Sakura patted the front of her obi.

"I advise you to just put it on whatever body part he's likely to touch or, uh, kiss most," Kakashi told her, clearing his throat near the awkward verbs. "I recommend around the breasts and inner thighs."

Sakura crumpled all over again. "Oh, _god_…"

"Maybe a little on your shoulders too?" Kakashi wondered aloud. "And don't forget to wash your hands after you apply it. We can't have you falling asleep on the job too."

Sakura tried to be brave. Tried to nod in a confident I-can-do-anything Naruto-esque way. Tried to convince herself that using her body in this way was no different than using it to fight. She really tried.

She was five seconds away from bursting into tears.

Fortunately, Kakashi used those seconds wisely. "You apply drug then," he said, standing up. "I have to go answer nature's call."

He was disappearing into the trees by the time the first tear leaked from the corner of Sakura's eye. She dashed it away furiously, angry at herself for letting this get to her. Most kunoichi did these kinds of missions at some point in their lives, and if she was half as good as Tsunade thought she was, then she should be able to get through this without complaint.

Although… she had kind of hoped that if she was ever assigned this kind of mission, that it would come _much _later on in her life. A point when she _wasn't_ a complete virgin. All these hopes and fantasies that she'd been nurturing since she was a child about first kisses and first times were about to be shattered, just because some cretin hadn't locked his vase up properly.

Sakura dried her eyes hastily and snapped the top off the small vial and splashed a small amount onto her fingertips. Casting a quick eye around the clearing, she ascertained that Kakashi was still answering his call, and so quickly stuck her hand down the front of her yukata.

She felt only slightly idiotic sitting alone in the middle of a forest, rubbing her own breasts. But Sakura had to be thorough. There was no way anyone was attaching their lips to this chest without falling into a short coma. Whatever was left in the vial went on her thighs. Sakura wasn't exactly sure whereabouts a man would kiss her there, so she settled for dabbing it above her knees.

"Probably needs to be a bit higher up than that."

Sakura nearly jumped out of her skin. She whipped around to see Kakashi emerging from the bushes behind her. "Don't sneak around like that!" she gasped, tugging her yukata back over her legs.

"Sorry." He didn't sound too sincere. "But still, you might want to put that stuff higher up."

Color flushed through Sakura's face. "Men…" she muttered angrily as she turned away from him and hitched her yukata aside to comply. "You're all such sordid pigs…" She began smearing the liquid into her mid-thigh.

"I completely agree," he said. "But go higher."

How the hell could he tell? Sakura rolled her eyes heavenward before sliding her hand even further up her leg. Her fingertips were beginning to brush the edge of her panties. "Satisfied?" she asked flatly.

"Mm."

She finished quickly and set about rearranging her clothes. Kakashi held out the water bottle above her hands to wash away the excess poison before burying the vial under a nearby brush. Sakura scowled heartily at everything and nothing. "So," she said finally. "Should we get going then?" She was all greased up and ready to go. Frankly she'd be disappointed if she didn't meet Matsura as soon as possible. One suck of her knee and he'd be out like a light.

Of course, it probably wouldn't go anywhere near as smooth as that, but a girl could dream.

But Kakashi was giving her a long, lazy look that made her incredibly uncomfortable. His exposed eye swept up and down her body, from head to breast to hip to ankle. He was probably scrutinizing her appearance to make sure everything was in check – that she looked enough like a fourteen year old girl to carry the pretence off. But did he have to stare for so long?

Suddenly he sat down against the tree again, as if the wind had been knocked clean out of his sails. "We're ahead of schedule," he told her. "We can rest for a bit longer." He turned his head away and didn't look at her again.

Any delay was perfectly welcome in Sakura's book. She forced herself to relax and moved to sit down next to him; close enough to feel the warmth radiating through his clothes but not quite close enough to touch him. Sakura let her head drop back against the tree and closed her eyes as the sounds of the forest swept over her.

She waited for Kakashi to make up his mind about their schedule. Waited for him to get up, clap his hands and start ushering her towards the compound and into the arms of a perverted ninja. But it never came. How long did they sit there? Long enough for the sky to grow dark at least. Long enough for Sakura's head to start sliding sideways until it connected with Kakashi's shoulder – only to spring back up with a snort as she caught herself beginning to snooze.

The sixth time she did it, Kakashi laughed.

Sakura gave him a peevish scowl. "I can't help it," she defended herself, rubbing her eyes to keep them from sliding shut again. "Shouldn't we be going yet?" she wondered. "We've been here for at least an hour."

"I know," he said lazily.

"We'll be late."

"They're not expecting us," he pointed out. "And what's your hurry?"

Sakura conceded that he had a point there. She had no hurry. Right then she wanted nothing more than to curl up against the tree and go to sleep, forgetting about stupid vases and even stupider men. And if Kakashi didn't care, then she didn't either. "So this is how it happens," she murmured.

"How what happens?" He turned his head towards her.

"How you're always late," Sakura said, stretching her arms above her head with a yawn. "You make it look so effortless."

"The trick is to just get carried away thinking about something else," he explained.

"Ah," she whispered with a sage nod, as if this was special imparted knowledge from a true master. "I suppose you like to keep your new team waiting around as much as you did us, right?"

Kakashi stiffened slightly. "Oh…"

"What?" Sakura looked at him through the dimming light.

"Um…" Kakashi looked forlornly up into the tree canopies. "Well… I'm sure they'll have figured it out and gone home by now."

Sakura passed a hand over her eyes. "…you arranged a training session for them today, didn't you?" she guessed dully.

"This morning," he admitted.

Sakura surprised herself by giving in to a small bubble of laughter. "Kakashi-sensei, you are the worst teacher in creation."

"Not while Gai still breathes," he reminded her.

They lapsed into another silence. Sakura staved off the urge to snooze by watching the last sliver of sun sink behind the trees. She shifted against the tree and plucked at her yukata front. The poison was making the cloth stick to her skin…

Hopefully Matsura wouldn't notice that.

Sakura gave a depressed sigh.

"So," Kakashi began. "How are my two worst students doing?"

Sakura looked up at his profile, trying to read his expression. A bit of a difficult task when he wasn't even looking at her. But at least he'd asked about the rest of their former team, which warmed her heart a little. "They're ok, I guess," she said sincerely. "Sasuke's frustrated. He keeps challenging Naruto, which in turn makes Naruto more frustrated because he keeps losing to a genin. They've even started making a tally of all their wins and losses. Last time I checked, Naruto had twenty-five wins and twenty-four losses."

"Ahh," Kakashi sighed. "The beauty of youth…"

Sakura grinned. "Naruto has to keep challenging Sasuke to all these stupid ramen eating contests to keep his score up."

"It's nice to hear they're good friends now."

Sakura wrinkled her nose. He would _know_ that if he just spent a little more time with them. "Well… I'm not sure their relationship can be defined in a word like 'friendship'," she said idly. She waggled her eyebrows at Kakashi. "If you know what I mean…?"

From his blank stare, she realized he didn't. "Sorry?" he asked.

Sakura lifted her head up. "Didn't you hear what happened in training grounds three a few months ago?" she asked.

Kakashi shook his head. "What happened?"

Sakura gasped. Kakashi didn't _know_! This was great! This was like finding an old coloring book from her childhood and finding one last picture that hadn't been filled in. She thought she'd spread the gossip as far as she could – that there was no one left to tell. She couldn't wait to get her crayons out. "I can't believe no one told you!" she grinned. "_Everyone _in Konoha knows."

He gave her an long-suffering look. "Knows what?"

Sakura bit her lip, glad for the cooling air and light that muted the blush forming across her cheeks. "Well, I wasn't there personally. It was Neji who saw it all. He says he was training in area four, listening to Sasuke and Naruto dueling in area three. You know what they're like when they spar, right? Crash, bang, small villages and mountains go flying, that kind of thing. But he says that he noticed things seemed to be getting a little loud and intense over there. The ground was shaking a lot. Then all of a sudden it goes quiet and Neji gets worried. He thinks that they've gone and killed each other at last and so goes to investigate. Guess what he finds?"

Kakashi's eye was wide. "You don't mean…?"

"They were all over each other. Totally making out in their own little crater." That was the slightly edited version of events. According to some people, the pair were doing a lot more than just kissing and rolling around in the dirt. "Neji was sworn to secrecy… so naturally the whole town knows now. Neji told Ten Ten, who told Ino, who told _everyone_. Naruto and Sasuke won't talk about it – not even with me, so everyone's got their own version of events going around the rumor mill."

Kakashi could only blink at her. "I had no idea…"

"I don't think Naruto and Sasuke have quite figured out what happened either," she told him.

"But I thought Naruto was completely smitten with you?"

Sakura smiled shyly. "'Was' being the operative word. The day he told me not get between his and Sasuke's rivalry again was the day I pretty much realized that his feelings for Sasuke were stronger than anything he felt for me, even if it was more of an animosity than a friendship back then."

"What about Sasuke?" Kakashi asked quietly. "I thought you were quite fond of him."

To be honest, she still was. "It wasn't so bad," she told him with a forced smile. "It's better losing a guy to another guy. At least that way you can convince yourself that there was nothing you could have done to catch his eye. It's better than losing him to someone like Ino." Sakura sniffed. "She was completely devastated by the way."

Kakashi gave a heavy sigh. "Kids these days grow up so fast," he mused. "I'm pretty sure it wasn't like this in my day."

"Oh?" She cocked an eyebrow at him. "What were you up to when you were seventeen?"

"Hm? Oh…" He scratched his chin. "That was the year the war ended… I think. There was a lot of celebrating. Sake was involved." He paused, trying to remember. "That was a very blurry period of my life," he finished vaguely.

Sakura would have given an arm and both legs to see seventeen year old Kakashi throwing caution to the wind and celebrating with liberal quantities of alcohol. To see that would be even more rewarding than seeing his naked face (she'd accomplished that goal already so she needed to find something bigger and better to obsess over – and quickly). She just couldn't quite imagine the stoic, lazy man beside her ever getting drunk and forgetting an entire year of his life.

It was possible that he'd been kidding.

"Getting drunk is something all seventeen year olds do well, apparently," he went on cheerfully. Sakura frowned, wondering if there was some kind of meaning behind that. If there was, he didn't pause to let it sink in. "How is Ino, by the way?"

Sakura shrugged. "Fine. She's been methodically stealing half my wardrobe recently."

"She hangs out with that smart kid, doesn't she?" he went on mildly. "Shikamaru, wasn't it? Have you seen him recently?"

Why the sudden interest? Sakura frowned at the tree line. "No, I haven't seen him in a week or so."

"That's funny." Kakashi turned to give her a piercing look. "Because I bumped into him last night and he told me that he'd seen _you _in a bar not thirty seconds before."

So there _had _been a double-meaning. Sakura schooled her expression and feigned disinterest. "Shikamaru told you I was in a bar..?" She'd _kill_ that little snitch…

Kakashi shook his head. "Actually, no. I saw you leaving with Ino. I just coaxed Shikamaru into telling me what had happened."

Sakura went cold. She vaguely remembered turning around on her barstool and propositioning the entire establishment. The room had quite quickly turned upside down at that point and Ino had been escorting her home the next. Surely Shikamaru hadn't overheard that proposition…? Surely he wouldn't tattle on her to her old teacher?

Rather than talk herself into a hole, Sakura held back. She waited to hear the rest of what Kakashi knew before she leaped to her defense. She knew perfectly well that this man had a tendency of letting his suspects confess unwittingly before he even knew what they were guilty of. She'd seen it too many times to fall for it herself.

They sat in silence for a few long minutes, both waiting for the other to break it. Sakura's mind raced for a back-up plan. Even if Kakashi knew what she'd said in the bar, it was possible that she could play it off as a joke. A drunken joke and nothing more.

Eventually Kakashi proved to be the less stubborn of the two. He gave another small sigh and turned away from her. "It's not a good idea to get drunk the night before an important mission, Sakura," he reproached. He sounded just like he did in the old days when he scolded Naruto for eating too much food before training.

"I know," she said quietly. "I was just…"

"You were just what?" He looked at her expectantly.

She had just been so desperate to live up to the mission specifications that she'd been willing to find the nearest living, breathing male to lose her virginity to. Better a complete stranger than a friend or acquaintance she would have to face afterwards. Better a complete stranger than a pedophile.

However, getting drunk was the only way she'd ever be able to find the courage to do that. And even then, she'd failed.

"I was just anxious about the mission," she told him quietly. Even though it was technically the truth, it still felt like a lie. She was leaving out too much for it to be an honest answer. "I wasn't thinking…"

"It's alright," Kakashi placed a hand gently on her shoulder. It was warm and large and made her want to close her eyes and lean into him. "I'm not angry."

He hadn't mentioned anything about her virginity yet, so Sakura felt it was safe to move on a bit. "I'm still sorry. It won't happen again."

"It's alright," he said again. "I'm not your teacher anymore, Sakura. You don't have to explain yourself to me. Kindly tell me to go to hell any time you like."

She smiled softly. "I'll keep that in mind."

Kakashi stared at her for a moment before consciously removing his hand from her shoulder. Sakura felt strangely cold without its comfort. "I don't care what Tsunade-sama thinks," he said slowly. "Whatever level of experience you possess, it can't quite prepare you for a mission like this."

"Really?" Sakura looked up at him with a mixture of hope and fear. Hope that her virginity wouldn't be a liability. Fear that this was the worst possible way to lose it.

"Almost nothing can," he murmured, pressing his back to the tree trunk as he continued to gaze out over the clearing. "And your problem is that you're attractive. This won't be the last time they'll ask you to use your body this way."

There was a compliment in there somewhere, but Sakura didn't care for it in that particular context. Kakashi wasn't flattering her. He was warning her of her downfall. Sakura knew she had even features, clear skin and a straight nose. Her mother told her often enough, even if Sasuke hadn't particularly noticed (the incident three months ago finally explained why). Assets that she'd always been grateful to possess now seemed more of a curse.

"But you can always refuse them," he said, barely above a whisper. "No one will think any less of you."

Sakura swallowed hard. While she respected and admired Kakashi in many ways, she knew that he wasn't beneath telling her little white lies in an attempt to comfort her. Ninjas who chickened out of missions were _always _frowned upon. But most of all, she didn't want Kakashi to look at her and see nothing but a frightened little girl playing a grown up's game. She was a _jonin, _for crying out loud. If she couldn't handle _everything_ the job threw at her, then she wasn't fit to hold the title.

And she didn't want to quit in front of Kakashi. Of all people, she needed him to recognize that she was capable. Most people paled in comparison to Sasuke and Naruto. They were two of the most exceptionally skilled shinobi Sakura had ever met, let alone trained with. They were special. They were the ones that people would remember when recalling Kakashi's first genin team. She was just 'the other one'. Nothing special.

She couldn't shy away from this mission. She couldn't afford to be weak in front of Kakashi…

Sakura released her breath a soft sigh. "I can do this," she whispered with a calmness that belied the mild panic attack she had been suffering since Kakashi had uttered "_The mission starts here."_

Her old mentor and teacher didn't say anything. She thought she saw him nod imperceptibly out the corner of her eye, but it could have just been the wind rustling through his rumpled, gray locks. Idly she wondered if his hair had always been that color, or if he was just one of those terribly unfortunate people who suffered premature whitening in his teens or early twenties. She didn't know. She didn't know much about anything that involved Kakashi.

How had he gotten his famous eye? He'd never bothered to tell her.

What was his favorite color? Obviously he found this too trivial to mention.

Where was his family? What had happened to them? Had he ever been in love? Did he have a girlfriend? A wife? Children?

What was he thinking at that very moment as he stared into the trees? Was he contemplating her determined words and in awe of her maturity? Or was he wondering if he'd left the oven on?

Sakura wished he would say something. Anything. If Naruto had been there he would have been filling the encroaching silence with nonsense twittering. Instead she could only fill it with her own fears and insecurities. Why wasn't Kakashi saying anything?

Then his hand touched her leg.

It wasn't a touch of comfort or condolence. She knew what they were like – quick and firm and often accompanied by a sad sort of smile. This was not like that. Kakashi's touch was soft, almost absent-minded as his fingers drifted lazily across her thigh. The material of her yukata was thin, allowing her to feel even the lightest of touches.

Uncertainly, she looked up at Kakashi, but his face offered little explanation. He still stared impassively into the trees as he'd been doing for the last few minutes.

His touch grew bolder. Strong fingers squeezed against her inner thigh as his thumb drew gentle circles on her outer. Sakura shifted uncomfortably under his warm hand. No one had ever touched her like this. "Kakashi-sensei…" she began awkwardly. Her throat had gone tight and she didn't know exactly what to say to follow up after that.

Was she misreading here? It hardly felt like an innocent touch – more like a sensual caress. But it was _Kakashi_. He'd never… not in a million…

His hand slid further up her thigh, making Sakura's breath hitch. She attempted to catch hold of his wrist and stop his progress, but he ignored her and continued. "Kakashi-sensei – what are you doing?" she hissed, feeling herself go red as his fingers drew dangerously close to her groin. It was embarrassing. More than a little scary. Why was he doing this?

He squeezed the top of her thigh gently but firmly, making her choke and try to push his hand away more forcefully. Once again he ignored her, and a second later he was cupping her.

Sakura went rigid and her legs snapped together in alarm, though this only served to press his hand closer. She couldn't move, let alone breathe. She sat trembling against the tree, staring at the hand lodged between her legs. She could feel his middle finger pressing through her yukata and the material of her panties and into the dip where her entrance lay. She tried to tug his hand away. He responded by pressing harder, making her freeze all over again. Blood rushed to her face. Partly because she was mortally shocked and embarrassed, but also because a tingling had started beneath his warm hand. If he just moved that hard finger a few centimeters further up…

Sakura gulped almost audibly.

Finally Kakashi turned his head to regard her. "Does this make you uncomfortable?" he asked tonelessly, in what had to be the biggest understatement of the year.

Sakura glared ferociously at him, chest heaving in an effort to contain all the raging emotions within her – the most prominent of which was unabashed anger. Her answer was clear in her over bright eyes. _What do _you _think? _"Why…?" she gasped, her voice cracking with hurt.

"Whatever you're feeling now," said Kakashi, "It'll feel a hundred times worse when Matsura does it."

A cold wave passed through Sakura, draining away all the intense emotions she'd been experiencing and leaving behind a numb aftertaste. Her hand slackened on his wrist, dropping away completely. But his hand remained pressed insistently against her. Testing her.

Tsunade-sama had often said that Kakashi always took his teaching methods one step further than any normal, sane teacher. She had a point. But so did he. If she couldn't handle _him_ touching her, how the hell was she going to handle Matsura?

And then came the bitterness. This was the first time she'd ever been touched in this way by anyone, let alone a man, and he was only doing it to make a point. Would he have done this if he knew she was a virgin? Did he think it was ok because he thought she'd been touched this way before?

His hand twitched against her, making her whole body flinch in response.

Oh god, she was getting wet.

Sakura squeezed her eyes shut and prayed that he didn't notice through her layers of clothing. She wasn't sure her racing heart could take the embarrassment.

"It's not pleasant, is it?" Kakashi guessed. "To be touched without permission or tenderness…"

That's what _he _thought. Sakura swallowed again, trying to distract herself from the odd sensations coiling beneath the weight of his palm. She didn't think it was _pleasant_ exactly (it was too weird for that), but it didn't quite qualify as unpleasant, even if it was the most awkward thing she'd ever been subjected to. And now she was almost certain that he wouldn't be doing it if he knew the truth.

"Kakashi-sensei," she started shakily. "I have to tell you…"

He stiffened and looked past her.

"I'm not really… um… well, the truth is, I _am_ a-"

Kakashi's free hand was suddenly pressed against her cheek; his thumb crushed against her parted lips. Her words were cut off. Sakura flinched as he turned his face toward her, all but pressing his mouth to her ear.

"We're being watched," he warned her in the barest of whispers.

Sakura's eyes darted around the clearing, trying to locate their audience, but found nothing. Why hadn't she sensed anything? Was Kakashi really that cool-headed, even when sticking his hand between the legs of his former students?

Ever so casually, Kakashi's hand slipped away from her. Sakura tried to maintain the same nonchalance as she scooted a few inches away, straightening her yukata and running a hand through her hair as she cleared her throat. Her heart was still battering away at her ribs and her hands shook ever so slightly, and even though he was no longer touching her, the sensations he'd inflicted on her were still throbbing in the pit of her stomach.

_Tree, please open up and swallow me now…_ She couldn't even look at him for shame.

"Want some water?" Kakashi asked loudly, getting to his feet and opening up his backpack. He didn't even wait for Sakura's answer before he fished a hand inside –

And withdrew the shuriken holster he'd confiscated earlier.

In one smooth action, he sent two shuriken streaking off into the trees to connect with their targets in two hollow _thunks_. Sakura watched in irritation. How was he able to do that so easily? She couldn't sense anyone…

For a few seconds, all that could be heard was the residual pounding of Sakura's own heart. Then, just as she was beginning to think Kakashi had killed the eavesdroppers with his deadly accuracy, two shadows detached from the tree line as a couple of figures stepped into the clearing.

Each had a shuriken lodged in the metal guards on their arms.

"Nice try," one said, "but you missed."

"I wasn't intending to kill you." Kakashi shifted his weight onto one leg and shoved his hands into his pockets. "But you're right, I did miss. I was aiming for your balls. Sadly, they appear to be too small a target…"

Sakura ran a hand over her face. She realized Kakashi wasn't trying to make friends here. If these were Matsura's men then he would be trying to exert some kind of dominance and reverence over them as quickly as possible. It helped speed things along when you commanded some kind of respect with your targets.

But insulting their genitalia probably wasn't the course most people would have chosen…

However, the two men seemed unfazed. "You must be exceptionally skilled to have sensed our presence," one of them said. Sakura couldn't be sure which one spoke as they both wore masks similar to Kakashi, only baggier to disguise lip movements. "You found us almost instantly."

To this, Kakashi gave a modest shrug. "Only moderately skilled. But even I could sense your voyeuristic intent from way over there."

The two men shifted guiltily. Sakura pulled a disgusted face at them behind Kakashi's turned back.

"This land is private territory," said one of the men, clearing his throat to change subjects. "You'll have to leave."

Kakashi shook his head. "I came here looking for someone."

"Oh?"

"Matsura. I have a request to make of him."

One ninja scoffed. "Matsura does not grant favors!"

Kakashi was silent for a moment. Sakura watched the back of his head carefully as his shoulders dipped lower for a moment. When he spoke, his voice had gone a shade quieter. "I intend to offer him an exquisite prize."

Sakura looked down at the scuffed dirt at her feet. A minute ago her heart had been running away with itself… now it suddenly felt incredibly heavy. The two pairs of eyes bored into her, measuring her up. Sakura suppressed the urge to inch behind Kakashi's shadow. This was _her _mission after all.

"Fine," one of them said with finality. "We'll take you to Matsura personally. He may be interested in your offer."

_Is that all I am?_ Sakura wondered with an inward sigh. The two men turned and began leading the way into the forest. Kakashi held back a moment to collect his pack and help Sakura to her feet, although she expressed a momentary hesitation in taking his proffered hand. Especially while knowing where it had been just a minute before.

Once on her feet, Kakashi placed a hand gently on top of her head. It lingered there a little longer than it probably should have, and Sakura looked up to meet weary eyes.

"I'm sorry," he said gently.

Sorry for what?

Sorry that he'd just referred to her as a prize? Sorry that it was too late to turn back? Sorry for what she was about to walk into?

Sorry for sticking his hand between her legs to make a case?

Sakura blushed slightly and shook her head. "It's ok," she told him, and meant it. Whatever he was apologizing for, she could forgive him.

Kakashi's hand slipped off her head, gently brushing down her back as it fell to his side again. More unnecessary contact. It confused her somewhat, but she found that she didn't particularly mind it. She felt just that little bit better when his skin met hers.

It sounded silly in her head, but it was true.

It was almost enough to make her want to take his hand in hers and gain some of his boundless strength and courage through the contact as they set off after their voyeuristic guides. _Almost _enough. Sakura refrained however, knowing it would probably be inappropriate for one to hold hands with one's superior while on a mission.

It was probably also quite inappropriate to molest one's subordinate while on a mission, but there one goes.

* * *

TBC

* * *

Thanks for all the feedback so far, people! I really enjoy all your comments. Thank you! 


	4. In which the mission begins

_

* * *

_

_You're kind of my protégé and one day you'll say you learned all you know from me,_

_I know you depend on me like a young thing would to a guardian,_

_I know you sexualize me like a young thing would and I think I like it._

* * *

The compound wasn't as far away as Sakura had originally imagined, but at least it looked exactly the way she'd pictured it. With bland gray buildings and flat roofs, it was too modern to be tastefully traditional, but too old to be in keeping with the current styles. It was said that Matsura had established himself as an elite ninja well over thirty years ago. That appeared to be when the compound had been built.

They were let in through one set of gates. Then another. And then a third set of gates before they finally reached the inner compound. Sakura traded discreet looks with Kakashi. They both knew this wasn't an easy place to get into without an invitation. Should anything go wrong, it wouldn't be particularly easy to escape from either. Not with three sets of thirty feet high perimeter walls topped with barbed wire and spikes to navigate past first.

The two ninjas who'd led them there handed them over to a pair of more heavily armored men stationed at the entrance of one of the larger buildings. While one of them went inside, presumably to announce their arrival, the other kept guard over them.

"Nice day, huh?" the guard said politely.

Kakashi looked him over briefly, as if assessing his worthiness for conversation, before apparently finding him wanting. "Mm," was all he said.

The guard didn't bother asking Sakura her opinion on the weather, to which she was mildly miffed. She'd not been ignored this way since she was a child… which, in retrospect, was probably what she wanted.

The minutes dragged by.

Kakashi got out his book and started thumbing to the page he'd left off at. Sakura balanced precariously on one leg as she poked at the rather prominent blisters on her other foot. The guard made popping sounds with his cheeks, clearly feeling awkward.

Finally the other guard returned. "Matsura-sama is a busy man," he said reverently. "But fortunately you have come at an opportune time. He is ready to receive visitors in the parlor. Mai will escort you there."

They dumped their shoes in the entrance hall (for which Sakura was eternally grateful) and were passed into the care of a rather elderly maid. She shuffled away down a labyrinth of corridors and staircases, but at such a tremendously slow pace that the two Konoha jonins could probably have searched the place top to bottom alone and found Matsura a good few minutes before she finally arrived at the parlor entrance.

She tapped on the papery door. "Matsura-sama. Your visitors are here."

"Send them in."

The voice from within was a deep baritone that seemed scratched with age and a rough lifestyle. Sakura gulped as she had moments to mentally picture the man behind the voice. She'd been assuming he'd be a fat old man with wobbly jowls and small, piggy eyes. This was unlikely though, considering he was an elite ninja. What was she supposed to expect?

Then the door slid open and Sakura got her first glimpse of her target.

He sat at a low table with a cup of tea poised to his lips.

Old. Fat. Plenty of jowl and not enough eye. Wispy gray hair trailed in an uninspired tail down his back and an equally long beard was forked over a rather rotund belly. The lips sipping his tea were large and surprisingly wet, in a rather off-putting way. His brow had sunk so low that his eyes were hardly visible.

_Holy…_

He fit her mental image of a devious old pervert to a T. It was uncanny.

Sakura despaired.

Kakashi entered first with Sakura trailing along behind him, fitting into her role as meek girl-child. When he sat down, cross-legged opposite Matsura, Sakura knelt down a few feet behind him and to the side. She kept her gaze on the floor, but even without looking she could sense Matsura's eyes following her.

"To whom do I owe the pleasure?" he asked in the same rich voice as before.

Kakashi gave a short, not at all respectful kind of nod. "My name is Umino Iruka," he gestured a hand to Sakura, "and this is Rin-chan. Say hello, Rin-chan."

No one had told her to do that since she was six. Keeping her eyes firmly fixed on the floor, Sakura gave a deep, courteous bow that had her forehead brushing the floor. "Hello," she said, pitching her voice a little higher and softer than she would normally.

Matsura turned his attention away from her and brought it back to Kakashi. "So what brings you to my door?" he asked. "They tell me you have a favor to ask."

Kakashi nodded. "I do. Forgive me if I sound impetuous, but my master – the head of one of the wealthiest families in the east – has assigned me a mission. I fear it's too difficult to handle on my own, so I wish to humbly request your help on this-"

"I do not help people I do not know," Matsura interrupted abruptly as he took another sip of his tea. "Not unless you can make it worth my while."

The haggling boots were on.

"I'm willing to split the payment of my mission with you," Kakashi said. Sakura could see that he wasn't offering her to Matsura straight off the bat. "The amount is considerable. And of course, you're welcome to help yourself to whatever treasures we come across on the mission. I'm only interested in one. The rest is yours."

At Matsura's prompting, Kakashi went on to explain in detail what the imaginary mission entailed. He rattled off false dates, names and locations so easily that Sakura wondered if the treasure laden convoy he said was arriving on the east coast next month was actually real. For someone who told such appalling bad lies every time he was late, Hatake Kakashi knew his way around a fib. When he'd finished, Sakura almost believed his story, despite knowing beforehand that it was all complete nonsense.

Matsura listened intently, narrowing his eyes as Kakashi finished. "A convoy such as this will undoubtedly be guarded by some of the finest warriors around," he pointed out. "The prize hardly warrants the effort."

Kakashi's eyebrow lifted briefly in surprise. "Oh. You think it will be too difficult for you?" he asked mildly.

A teacup hit the table with such force that it almost cracked. Matsura glowered impressively at Kakashi. "How old are you?"

"Thirty."

Another lie, Sakura thought with a roll of her eyes. Kakashi had been thirty for the last two years.

"Let me tell you something, Umino Iruka," Matsura growled. "I was a legendary ninja long before you were even born. I was laying siege to the castles of Rasen before you'd even picked up your first kunai. Don't presume to know what is too difficult for me, as I have yet to be defeated in battle. A measly convoy is no match for me."

Kakashi gave a slightly impatient nod. "Yes, yes, so the real problem lies in the payment? Is what I offer not enough to interest you?"

"Promise of money is all well and good," Matsura said. "But we have only just met and I still have no reason to trust you. It is customary for someone in your position to bring a token of good-will, to cement relations and trust."

His eyes landed on Sakura again. She quickly looked at her knees.

"Why did you bring this girl here?" Matsura asked, although it was clear from his tone that he already knew why.

Kakashi looked sideways at Sakura, as if disinterested in her. "Rin-chan? She's just traveling with me."

"Why?" Matsura pressed. "Who is she?"

"I found her in one of the poverty stricken villages near the border of the Fire country. Her family was taken by war and famine, and she had no one left to take care of her. So I brought her with me," Kakashi explained. "I intend to take her back to my village soon."

Matsura didn't look impressed. "Why? I'm assuming her presence must be quite the hindrance to an accomplished man such as yourself. She must have slowed your journey here considerably. What could she possibly offer that could make the nuisance worthwhile?"

Sakura bit her lip. When Kakashi had gone over the mission with her, he hadn't explained _why_ she was supposedly traveling with him. Did he even have an answer prepared?

Kakashi's head tipped back a fraction. "Rin-chan has a lot to offer. Her massages like the touch of an angel to weary shoulders."

This was true, Sakura thought immodestly.

"…and she's very good with her mouth." And just to make sure that everyone present got his rather unsubtle point, Kakashi added, "Her blowjobs are to die for."

Sakura nearly fell over. By some amazing feat of self-control, she managed to keep from choking to death and instead stared so hard at the mat before her it was amazing it didn't spontaneously combust. But all the self-control in the world couldn't prevent the blush spreading steadily across her face, although this was less of a problem, since it wasn't really out of character.

Quite aware of Sakura's acute embarrassment, Matsura laughed heartily. "Reason enough, reason enough," he agreed. "But surely you know of my reputation, Iruka-san. I find it a little bit hard to believe that you brought her here for no reason other than the company. Unless you do this kind of thing regularly…?"

Kakashi shook his head. "You're right. I _have_ heard of your reputation. Rin-chan is my bargaining chip, although I was hoping to offer her in a more subtle way. Obviously I can't escape your keen eye," he said. "I found Rin-chan on my way here. Her unique looks caught my eye… I thought they might catch yours too."

Matsura rubbed one of his chins with a stubby finger. "How thoughtful. But you've obviously had her already."

Kakashi held up his hands guiltily. "Couldn't resist. I had to know if she tasted as good as she looked."

"And?"

"I wouldn't have brought her all the way here if she didn't."

As humiliating as this conversation was, Sakura couldn't help but feel a little angry. What was she, a piece of furniture? They talked about her as if she wasn't in the room. As if she was just a horse passing from one master to another. As if she wasn't a human with feelings and fears of her own.

Granted, this was all role-playing. Kakashi wasn't really bartering her away, and she wasn't really a helpless orphan. But how many other girls had sat where she'd sat who really _were _helpless and defenseless and had no choice but to go along with whatever the men decided for her? How many girls had Matsura taken to his bed? How real had their fear and vulnerability been compared to hers?

Only a few people had the honor of gaining Sakura's pure and unadulterated hatred. Orochimaru was one, for what he'd put Sasuke through. Itachi was another… for what he'd also put Sasuke through. Sasuke was the third, for what he'd put himself through.

Matsura just hit fourth place on her list, for everything he'd ever done to other girls in her position, and for what he might possibly do to her later on.

(Coincidentally, Kakashi came in at number five for trying to effectively break all ties with his former team. While Sakura could forgive a little molesting in the woods, she couldn't quite forgive _that_.)

Sakura was startled out of her inner seething when Matsura got to his feet. For an elite ninja, he sure wasn't light on his feet. He'd _have _to be elite in order to get around the handicap that was his own bulk. But once he'd straightened, he gestured a hand impatiently at Sakura. "Stand up girl so I can take a look at you."

Sakura chanced a brief glance at Kakashi and saw him shrug and nod his head. She got to her feet carefully and stood meekly as Matsura moved around the table to examine her.

The man was sizeable in all dimensions apparently, since he was almost as tall as Kakashi and towered easily over her. He was close enough for Sakura to smell the tea he'd been drinking, and what also could have been sake. There were faint stains dribbling down the front of his front. Sakura wondered how a man such as this had gained a legendary title and an S-rank.

A large, chubby hand covered in calluses took her by the chin, making her start at the unwarranted contact. Matsura twisted her face this way and that as he examined her from different angles, and even pushed her lower lip down to examine her teeth. Sakura kept her eyes to the floor. Now she knew what it was like to be treated like a piece of meat. She was nothing to this man. Nothing more than a cheap thrill to pass the time. He saw her the way Kakashi probably saw those books of his.

Bad, _bad _association…

"She clean?" Matsura asked Kakashi, the way most people asked if a horse had been shod.

"She is," Kakashi murmured, not looking at either of them.

Sakura blinked in confusion. After a whole day trekking through forest and sitting on hay stacks, she thought she was quite grubby actually…

"How old?" Matsura inquired again.

Kakashi did look at them this time. "Fourteen." He was watching Matsura carefully, as if trying to gauge his reaction.

Sakura watched the man too, and saw him lift one heavy eyebrow. "Early bloomer, I see."

At least he bought it, because he then turned and shouted towards the closed door. "Yushio!"

The door slid back and a guard stood there expectantly. "Yes, Matsura-sama?"

"Fetch Mai here, will you? She can see to the girl."

The guard nodded and slid the door shut again. Matsura moved to retake his seat while Sakura practically collapsed to her knees in relief that some distance had been restored between them again.

"So you accept my offer?" Kakashi asked cheerfully.

"Nn," Matsura grunted. "She's good enough. We may be able to do business."

Sakura tried not to feel to indignant at being deemed only 'good enough'. What was more important was that they'd secured a short-term invitation to stay. That was all that mattered.

"Umino Iruka…" Matsura was rolling the name around his mouth, as if tasting something familiar about it. He stroked his beard slowly as he scowled intently at Kakashi. "Have you ever heard of a man by the name of Hatake Kakashi?"

Sakura's insides froze, but all Kakashi did was nod softly. "Yes," he said. "You think I look like him, don't you?"

"I've never met him personally," Matsura admitted. "Though his description is in every bingo book in every village in every country. White hair, masked, and with a sharingan for a left eye. May I ask… how you lost _your_ eye, Iruka-san?"

"The usual way," Kakashi shrugged. "It turns out that when a mother tells her son that running with scissors is 'all fun and games till someone loses an eye', there's some real truth behind it."

"A childhood injury?" Matsura's brow quirked again. It was hard to tell if he believed Kakashi or not. "And why the mask?"

Kakashi paused for a moment before answering. "…I have a wart."

"Ah," Matsura nodded in an understanding and sympathetic way. Sakura's forehead was begging to be smacked against the table.

A knock sounded at the door. When Matsura called out, the panel slid back to reveal the slow old woman who'd originally showed them to the room. "Mai," Matsura gestured at Sakura. "Take this girl and bathe her. Find her something clean to wear and make her comfortable in one of the chambers."

_Bathe_!

Shit.

Sakura looked frantically at Kakashi, and even though his expression was oddly blank, she knew that he was probably thinking along the same lines. To bathe would wash away the drugs on her skin, and even if she had any left in the bottle, it was unlikely that she'd be getting the privacy to reapply it. Not with Mai around.

"You'll be alright, Rin-chan," Kakashi said as he got to his feet and offered her a hand. "You're in good hands."

Sakura took his hand and pulled herself up from her knees. No sooner was she standing than Kakashi pulled her into a loose, impromptu hug. Too startled to do much more than gape softly against his shoulder, it took her a moment to realize what he was doing.

_Ah, clever, Kakashi-sensei_, she thought as she returned the embrace. Now was the perfect opportunity for him to slip her another vial of poison, or perhaps even a kunai.

But he gave her nothing. Sakura frowned with growing apprehension as he neither passed her a weapon nor slipped anything useful into her obi.

It was just a simple embrace.

It was just… it was just what she needed.

The reality of her situation was suddenly all too overwhelming, and she felt her body betray her as she clung more tightly to her old sensei as if he was the only thing keeping her from drowning. She worried that the moment he let her go, she'd be caught out of her depth and would sink clean away. He'd tried to warn her… but she'd ignored him. Now it was too late, and all he could do to help her was offer her a secret farewell.

Goodbye, Sakura.

Goodbye, Sakura's virginity.

Sakura and her virginity just wanted to go home.

Kakashi must have known how she felt. He wouldn't have bothered hugging her otherwise.

After a small eternity, his arms loosened around her and she had to step back. "Go on now," he motioned to the doorway where Mai stood. "I'll see you later."

Sakura nodded shakily, not trusting herself to speak because the lump in her throat was threatening to crack and break her words. Instead she turned her glossy eyes to the floor and followed Mai out of the room.

Even when the door was drawn shut, the walls were thin enough to overhear Kakashi's short, embarrassed laugh.

"She's just a little nervous. She's not done anything like this before."

All too freaking true.

* * *

The washroom was plain and cold with a bath tub set into the ground like a ditch. Mai handed Sakura a bar of soap, a single washcloth and told her to strip down and start lathering herself up while she ran the water. Sakura obeyed, for lack of knowing what else to do. Feeling like a witless idiot, she left her clothes in a small pile in the corner before taking a seat on one of the available stools. 

She noticed Mai's old, milky eyes scanning her form with a look that could be called suspicious. (At least Sakura hoped it was suspicion. She had her hands full of old men leering at her – she didn't need old women doing the same.) But if Mai thought that her body looked a little too advanced to be fourteen years old, she said nothing, and continued running the bath.

Sakura wet her cloth with one of the taps and began scrubbing lather into her shins.

She didn't think she was particularly curvy or womanly shaped – at least not the way that sent the boy's wild. It was Ino who had discovered this. She'd finally accepted that Shikamaru _was _a genius and taken his advice to give up her diet. Five kilograms later and Ino's father was fending off the boys with a kunai. Literally.

But Sakura had found to her dismay that, with or without a diet, her weight didn't shift much. Her thighs would never be as slim and sleek as the girls in the magazines (running, jumping and climbing trees did less to burn fat and tone up, than it did to just… harden muscle), nor would she ever gain enough weight to fill out her breasts or stop her ribs showing when she raised her arms.

However, despite all this, Sakura was fairly content with her weight. She was lithe and light – two factors that were important to every ninja (a concept Matsura was having some trouble getting his head round apparently). But what weight you sacrificed for just that small edge in speed and agility was a point sacrificed in your score with the opposite sex.

Sure, Sakura was a better ninja than Ino, but Ino only had to bat her eyelids and push her chest out to bring the boys flocking.

And who did Sakura attract?

Raging pedophiles, that's who.

Sakura continued to lather with a scowl pressing over her features. She was carefully avoiding running the cloth over her breasts for fear of washing away the poison. She didn't bother avoiding her thighs. The moment she stepped into the bath, the poison down there would be a lost cause.

"All done here," Mai turned off the taps and laid a towel down next to the rim of the tub inset in the floor.

This was the point where Sakura would normally smile and thank the woman for helping out, but Sakura's mood was still dangerously black. It was best if she interacted with as few people as possible or else risk blowing up at them like a miniature pink volcano. Besides, she was too preoccupied with her own thoughts to care much about the old woman.

As she carefully slid into the water, making sure that she didn't let it rise above her waist, she thought of Kakashi.

Where was he? What was he doing? Was he still 'negotiating' with Matsura? Had Shikamaru really told him what she'd said in the bar last night and was just politely keeping his mouth shut, or was he still honestly oblivious to her little plight? If he _did _know, did he even care? Would he think her an immature idiot if he knew how much she wished to go home?

Probably.

She remembered his earlier slip about being in the same situation as her. He'd already done what she was about to do – maybe even more than once. There was no way she would quit while he was around. She didn't think she had the right.

But it wasn't like _he'd_ lost his virginity this way. She knew how boys worked. As soon as they hit puberty they wanted to hump anything that moved – and they usually did. Save for Sasuke. No one had really witnessed his puberty, and even when he'd returned, he'd possessed the sex drive of a dead panda. Naruto on the other hand…

Even if he'd never stated it explicitly, she'd gotten the feeling from him and Jiraiya that Naruto hadn't always felt restrained to sit outside the brothels that Jiraiya visited while on their travels. He'd almost definitely lost his virginity to some common prostitute before he'd even reached fifteen. And he wasn't alone. That was the path that most boys in Konoha chose.

Shikamaru's reasoning was that sex terrified men. "Everyone's so worried that they're bad at it that they just want to go practice all the technical stuff with people who don't really matter," he'd said. "Then they come home, get girlfriends and become legends."

Shikamaru was probably still a virgin in that case. He was just too lazy not to be.

But aside from this unconfirmed suspicion, Sakura was pretty sure she was one of the only virgins left in her year group. When you were considered an adult at fifteen, a lot of people had already gotten busy by then. What had Sakura been waiting for?

Sasuke? Possibly.

Perhaps she'd just been too busy? Hum…

Sakura wrinkled her nose as she rinsed her arms carefully, still avoiding her breasts.

Sakura had plenty of spare time. Sometimes she just wanted to cry with boredom because she had so little to do. If she'd just settled down and picked a boyfriend she could have been busy _doing_ _him_ instead of moping around. But no. Sakura was too picky. If he wasn't Sasuke, he wasn't worth having.

Now Naruto had Sasuke.

Damn that blonde. First to pop his cherry and the first to get his claws into the last surviving Uchiha.

Get him to _admit_ that though…

So here Sakura sat at the end of it all. In a bath full of sweet smelling water and half a vial of poison smeared over her breasts with the grave possibility that if she wasn't careful about keeping those breasts dry, her virginity would be lost to the most depraved individual she'd ever met.

Kakashi may have known what it was like to be used in such a way, but it was doubtful, considering the tradition of most of young men, that his first experience would be confined to a mission. He was a pervert to the core. Those books proved as much. She could almost believe the old rumor that Ino had mentioned to her – the one in which it was said that Kakashi had lost his virginity at eleven. Eleven!

(Sakura hadn't liked to dwell on that rumor, because _sensei + sex _equalled _Ewwwwwwww…_)

But still…

Sakura didn't want to give up in front of him. Not while he was there to judge her with his own experiences. She didn't want to lose his respect that way. A respect that she'd worked hard to obtain after years of always being the weakest and most useless member of Team Seven.

She wasn't a child anymore. She was an _adult_.

But this mission seemed to twist that perception on its head.

"Are you done?" Mai asked from behind her.

Sakura glanced down at her breasts. They were moist from water vapor, but that shouldn't have diluted the poison much. Even so, she had to be careful about toweling off. Too much vigorous rubbing, and it would all come off.

"Yes, I think so," she said, clambering out of the tub. Sakura refused to let the old woman dry her off, in favor of doing it herself. After she'd shrugged on a clean white yukata and tied her hair back, Mai led her out of the washroom and down another tangle of corridors to whatever 'chamber' Matsura had mentioned earlier.

"These are Matsura-sama's chambers," Mai announced as she ushered Sakura through a set of guarded doors.

If Matsura had matched her preconception of an old pedophile to a T, then his bedroom could have been designed on blueprints plucked from her own head.

Red drapes, black silk sheets, lots of expensive looking trinkets littering expensive little tables and cases. Swords, wakazashi, daggers and kunai. Armour, ribbons, senbon and paintings of bloody battles.

Sakura looked around with distaste. _Typical_, she thought. This room was revolting.

It smelled a bit funny too, but the less known about that the better.

"You will wait here for Matsura-sama," Mai told her formally. How very professional. She must be used to scrubbing up girls for her master's pleasure.

Sakura scowled at the old woman as she shuffled out of the room and shut the door behind her. When she was sure she was alone, she began looking around the room, searching for anything that might match the description the client had given about his stolen vase. And while there were several vases scattered around the room, and in a few of the connecting ones too, none of them appeared to be painted gold or imbued with blue diamonds.

Disgruntled, she stomped back into the main room and settled down on the end of the bed.

All she could do was wait for Matsura and feel a new knot of fear twist in her stomach as each minute dragged past. The anticipation was excruciating. She found herself looking for windows and ventilation shafts, simply to take note of all possible escape routes.

Would people think terribly of her if she ran away now, changed her name and became a hermit and left Kakashi to finish up the mission alone? At least she'd never have to face the reproach…

_Oh, god…_

Sakura ran her hands over her face and hunched over her knees. She had to stop thinking about the tempting windows and hermit lifestyles. She had to concentrate on maintaining her act of a fourteen year old girl. If she didn't pull off a convincing performance, Matsura might cotton on and then her life would be forfeit.

How did a fourteen year old orphan act in this situation anyway?

Sakura thought for a moment.

Probably very much like a seventeen year old ninja virgin.

The door slid open with a bang. Sakura shot to her feet, hands clenched in the material of her yukata sleeves. She opened her mouth to utter something – a greeting, a cry of surprise, a whimper of fear – anything.

Her mouth promptly shut, snapping down on any noise she was about to make, as Matsura swept past her as if she wasn't even there. She may as well have been a hat stand for all the attention he paid her.

Sakura's eyes followed the bulky ninja as he took a swift seat on the edge of his bed. Her hands wrung nervously as he shrugged out of his indoor coat and let it drop haphazardly to the floor. What was she supposed to say? He was pretty much ignoring her.

With a great big sigh, the great big man lay back on the bed, arms folded behind his head and beady eyes closed.

Silence reined.

Sakura wondered if he'd actually gone to sleep and forgotten all about her. Now would be a perfect time to make a quick exit-

"Are you just going to stand there?"

Sakura flinched in surprise as he spoke and gave the man a wide-eyed stare. He was looking at her, annoyed and expectant.

"Oh… sorry," she didn't know what else to say. Well, she did, but "Fuck you!" probably wouldn't go down very well.

Matsura gave another impatient sigh. "Just take your clothes off."

She'd been expecting to undress at some point for this man. There had been little avoiding it. But to hear those words in a dispassionate order sent a cold chill running through her bones. She had no problem with nudity. She'd undressed for doctors, she'd gotten changed with women in the bathhouse and had even given her male teammates a few eyefuls during certain missions. But none of that had been for sex. None of it had been for a pervert; a man who just wanted to ogle her body for his own pleasure.

It made her feel weak and vulnerable in a way she hadn't felt since she was a genin.

But she couldn't chicken out.

Rather mechanically, Sakura pulled at the sash around her middle and let the yukata fall loose. With one shrug of her shoulders, the garment slid down her arms and onto the floor. She stood in nothing but the plain gray panties she'd put on that morning and stared decisively at the old ninja, just daring him to ask her to remove them.

He didn't. He was too busy running his eyes up and down her exposed body, a light frown tugging at his low brow. Sakura almost stepped back and covered her chest at how violated that simple look made her feel.

"How old are you?" he asked shortly.

Sakura swallowed past the lump in her throat. "Fourteen." Had he noticed the flare of her hips? Did he think her waist was too narrow? She didn't think her body had changed _too _much in three years.

"Bit old for my tastes," he said, pulling a sneer.

Sakura didn't know if she was supposed to be offended by that or not. So she just kept her mouth shut and swayed gently where she stood. On the outside she may have looked listless and stiff, but on the inside she was trying to figure out the best way to ask someone to lick her breasts.

Not something she'd ever really had to ponder before.

Matsura beckoned her toward the bed with a large hand.

Dread seeped through her veins, but she still moved forward. _Just a tool, _she reminded herself. _Your body is just a tool… nothing more. This means nothing. Just a tool…_

She wished she could believe that.

* * *

TBC 


	5. Which contains obligatory flashbacks

* * *

_And it's beginning to get to me,_

_That I know more of the stars and sea,_

_Than I do of what's in your head._

* * *

Ask Sakura to explain the official procedure for treating stab wounds to the head and neck, and she would talk your head off for the rest of the day. She was a healer second only to the Hokage herself, and she knew her stuff. She knew the ins and outs of the human body the way Ino knew every flower in her garden, or the way Kakashi knew every word of Icha Icha Paradise off by heart. She knew how to resuscitate the dead. She knew how to kill pain without drugs. She could stitch a wound so precisely that it wouldn't even scar. 

But Sakura was not a doctor.

She was a human mechanic. They came to her broken, she sent them away fixed. Muscles, bones, blood and chakra were her cobs, gears and screws. Beyond that, her knowledge of the human body and its processes were limited.

Ask Sakura to explain what an aroused penis looked like, let alone how it worked, and she would probably gape at you in shock before mumbling that she'd once heard they were quite similar to bananas.

That was as much as she knew.

Sakura had left the academy long before sex ed entered the syllabus. Her mother had never elaborated these gaps in her knowledge and limited herself to teaching Sakura about menstrual cycles and the such. Her father liked to pretend that things like sex, boys and periods didn't really exist and so _never_ talked about _anything_ like that. Tsunade didn't feel it was necessary to include such details in Sakura's curriculum as she was merely training a surgeon, not a GP, and there was pretty much no one else to enlighten her.

Without a TV, she couldn't get any ideas from late night films. Without the courage to buy Icha Icha, she couldn't scrape anything from Jiraiya's vulgar, yet extensive knowledge.

She walked towards Matsura now with her lack of knowledge and experience hanging heavily over her head. She remembered the time Lee had asked her out on a date. She'd said no. Now she wished she hadn't refused. Given a choice between Lee and this pig, she would choose Lee in a heartbeat. She may not have gone all the way with Lee, but at the very least he might have given her a kiss. Her first kiss.

Now her first kiss would be given by an old pervert. And not necessarily to her mouth.

_I'll probably be traumatized for life,_ she thought, stricken as she knelt on the soft silk covering the mattress. _After this I'll probably never want to be with another man, let alone look at one for as long as I live!_

Which was a shame really, because she was sure that sex was quite good fun once you found the right person (what with the way Ino drilled on about it) and she hadn't yet tossed out the possibility that Sasuke's sexual orientation might swing back in her direction if she were to give him a good reason…

Except Naruto would probably give him a better one. That was how these things usually went…

Sakura stopped crawling forward when she knelt only a few feet away from the end of Matsura's foot. She wasn't going to invite herself any closer. If Matsura wanted her to do something, he would have to tell her explicitly, otherwise she'd just find the loophole and do the least possible.

"Your guardian," Matsura rumbled, "mentioned that you were particularly good with your hands."

Actually, he'd said that she was particularly good with her _mouth_. But he probably didn't need correcting lest he be reminded…

"You can start on my feet."

He wanted a massage? Sakura almost cried in relief. _This_ she could do. She'd been working massages for the last five years and she'd had plenty of old fat clients to prod and poke in that time. Suddenly she could see Matsura as a client – albeit one she didn't particularly like, but at least he seemed less scary than before.

Pulling away his tabi socks tentatively (and trying to ignore the rather strong odor), she set to work kneading her thumbs into the sole of his foot. She would have preferred to have some oils with her to slick his skin, but she didn't want to involve anything that might be construed as kinky.

After a few minutes, she switched feet and cracked his toes intentionally hard. Matsura didn't seem to care. He'd closed his eyes and for all intents and purposes went to sleep. The only indication he gave that he was awake was when he mumbled, "Higher."

Sakura chewed her cheek savagely as her warm hands slipped up his calves, bringing his foot onto her lap to keep the leg levitated. She regretted that move instantly the moment his heel dug deliberately into her crotch. She said nothing, merely enduring the unwanted touch. Had he been a real client, either she or Tsunade would have strung him up by the tentacles by now. Had he been a real client, she would not have been doing this in nothing but a pair of panties. Because she was simply a poor orphaned girl, she could do nothing more than hold her tongue and keep running her hands over his grizzly shins.

"Higher."

Sakura paused, feeling uncertain. He was asking her to massage his thighs. This was a problem for two reasons.

a) He was still wearing pants.

b) When Tsunade had been teaching the principles of massaging, she had made one thing abundantly clear when it came to male clients.

"Never, ever, ever massage higher than the knees!" the hokage had said to the girls gathered in her office as she tapped a life size poster of human anatomy which hung on her wall. "The same goes for the abdomen, hips, etcetera, etcetera. Basically just stay away from that whole area. While this isn't a problem you'll find with your female clients, just beware that men are considerably more sensitive in these areas. The last thing a male client needs is a pretty young masseuse giving him a raging erection. Very embarrassing."

The girls had laughed, pretty embarrassed by the hokage's overly frank explanation. Sakura laughed with them, blushing.

Tsunade had then tapped a picture of Jiraiya, complete with a red slashed circle around his face, the likes of which was normally found on the back of his books. "And don't ever massage this man. It doesn't matter what you touch, he'll still get turned on."

Sakura didn't fancy turning Matsura on. She wanted to avoid that for as long as possible, but it wasn't like she was in a position to refuse.

"I can't reach any further," she told him quietly. "Your… um… pants are in the way."

Matsura raised an eyebrow. "Then take them off," he said, as if stating the most obvious thing in the world.

Sakura nearly balked. This was somewhat like asking a stick insect to take the pants off a walrus. Walruses didn't wear pants, but if they did, a stick insect would sure have a hard time removing them.

Nevertheless, it was her job to grin and bear it. With shaking hands she reached out and began picking timidly at the buttons at Matsura's rather generous waist. When they were undone, Matsura shifted a little, making her task a little easier in pulling them down his equally generous legs. The pants, she realized, once she'd removed them, were virtually big enough to fit four Sakuras into – two for each pant leg.

She also realized that Matsura liked going commando.

And that _mushroom _was a better comparison than _banana_.

* * *

_Rasengan and Chidori._

_Naruto and Sasuke._

_Colliding on the roof of the hospital and about to kill each other._

_Kill Sakura._

_Someone would have died that day if he hadn't intervened. If he hadn't thrown Sasuke into one water tank and Naruto into another. She would have fallen apart if he hadn't turned to her, bent down, and given her a kind smile; one gesture and expression so apart from everything around them that she can't help but cling to it. She wants to believe it, even if it _is _fake._

_Her teammates are tearing their world apart – her world apart. And they don't care. But he does._

"_Don't worry, it'll be alright. Everything will be as it used to be."_

_It takes a while, and it gets a lot worse before it gets better… but he keeps that promise._

* * *

"Touch it." 

"…what?"

"The same way you were doing the massage. Touch it."

It was just flesh.

Just a tool.

Sakura reached out with trembling hands…

* * *

_Sakura sits weeping against the chainmail fence behind the timber yard. Her face is red, her cheeks are wet and she can't summon the will to get up and go home. But what does it matter? No one is around to see her cry._

_A child is dead. A little boy, barely six years old. And she, a jonin, was helpless to just watch him die. Her strength is monstrous… but it was not enough._

_She doesn't deserve her title._

_And all she can do was cry._

_Children's voices. Footfalls. Sakura looks up to see four people walking towards her along the fence. Three bickering children, barely out of diapers and a tall defined man with a mask and a dirty book. Sakura gasps and tries to dry her tears before they reach her. She pinches her lips together to keep from sobbing as he passes._

"_Yo."_

_She raises a hand in response, not able to speak. _

_He doesn't even look at her._

_The children fall quiet, staring at her apprehensively as they shuffle after their teacher. He may not have noticed her tears, but they do. And as soon as they mistakenly think they're out of earshot, she hears their whispers start up again. What's her problem? Why's she crying? Do you think she was dumped?_

_Feeling even more broken than before, she finally has the will to stumble home. Whether it's the children's nosy whispers or her former teacher's complete disregard, she feels too ashamed to continue crying on the street._

_But she only makes it as far as the market, where she collapses on a whicker basket full of chickens._

_At least she doesn't cry anymore. All she can do is watch people walk by, enjoying their lives. Adults, children, civilians and ninjas. None of them know that one small thread of life was cut that morning. No one cares that someone's child is gone forever. It's heartbreaking to realize how fragile a life is. One lucky kunai and she too will befall the inevitable fate of every living man and woman._

_Sakura doesn't think she can cope._

_It can't be more than half an hour later that someone taps her on the shoulder._

_There he is, silently holding out a plastic beaker of milkshake and cream – just like the ones she used to order when Team Seven went out for a celebratory meal which he sometimes paid for. He's not looking at her, as his book is still in the other hand. His three kids are still bickering behind him as they poke at another basket of chickens._

_She wordlessly accepts the milkshake and stares at it, hardly able to look him in the eye, but so grateful that her heart literally aches from the intensity. His hand drifts over her head, ruffling her locks with cold, damp fingers – testament to carrying the milkshake for three blocks. Then that hand is turning a page and he's drifting off after impatient children, saying "Seriously… you should give that chicken back," tiredly to their calls of "Come on, Kakashi-sensei!"_

_And suddenly, Sakura believes she can cope._

* * *

"Show me exactly how good this mouth of yours is."

* * *

_Sakura stands in the hokage's office with him at her side. She's handed a mission she knows she can't deal with, but because she has something to prove, because this is her only chance to talk to him again, she knows she's equally incapable of turning it down._

_He looks at her in concern. He offers her the first of many chances to back out. She doesn't see the real consideration behind his words._

_He's not concerned because she's weak._

_He's worried because she's his favorite._

_But she can't see it, so she gives the wrong answers again and again._

* * *

Touching Matsura was like touching a toad. Not only did he vaguely have the same texture, but she also couldn't shake the feeling that she was touching something poisonous that would contaminate her fingers. As much as she tried to take her mind away and concentrate on her task, she found it almost impossible. Every grunt and slide of flesh brought her crashing back down to earth harder than ever until she was painfully aware that she, Haruno Sakura, was on a bed with an old man, debating whether or not she would be able to stomach taking him into her mouth. 

For a start, she was only just managing to keep her mochi down at the mere brush of her fingers against his revolting little penis. To put it in her mouth was just asking for trouble.

And even though Kakashi had _said _her blowjobs were to die for, he really couldn't vouch from personal experience. Nobody could. Sakura had never given _anyone_ oral sex, and she was slightly worried that she would give herself away by messing it up with Matsura. She wasn't even exactly sure how one gave a blowjob…

So instead she hedged awkwardly, wondering if the old ninja was elite enough to catch her before she punched her way through the wall to freedom.

But Matsura wasn't patient with foreplay. Rather than wait for her to sum up the courage to bend her head, he grabbed her arm painfully hard and yanked her up toward the pillows. She flopped against them with a gasp and looked up as Matsura loomed over her. She tried not to feel like a sardine next to a whale. She tried not to feel scared.

It was difficult.

"Turn around," Matsura ordered.

Sakura obeyed, all but quivering in fear and apprehension. She reckoned she knew what was coming, and the reality made her pliant and stiff. Like a puppet. Matsura made her kneel before him with her back brushing the fabric covering his rotund belly. He grabbed and squeezed at her breasts, not caring that she gasped in pain at the roughness of his touch. She wasn't human to him. Just an object.

One of his hands reached down to forcefully fondle her between her legs, through her panties. Sakura almost twisted away in shock. It was nothing like Kakashi's touch. Her teacher had been right when he'd warned her that Matsura's hand would be a hundred times worse.

Matsura wasn't gentle like Kakashi. He didn't make her wet like Kakashi had.

Matsura noticed this when his hand dipped beneath her fabric. Sakura was glad she was facing away from him so he couldn't see the murderous grimace that crossed her face as he plundered his fingers through the most intimate area she possessed. Rather than make her heart pound and her legs quiver, it simply made her want to commit homicide.

Then he plunged two fingers inside of her.

Sakura screamed and nearly bucked clean away. It _hurt_! Something tore around his fingers, bringing tears to her eyes and a searing pain around his intrusion. Her efforts to twist away were renewed, but Matsura held her firmly. A low chuckle resonated in her ear.

"I thought he'd already tasted you," he muttered thickly. "That guardian of yours must have a pencil-dick."

Almost as if to gloat over this discovery, he removed his hand and splayed his fingers across her breast again. Sakura watched the smear of blood being spread over her skin and her whole body turn cold. What had he done?

Matsura moved his hand over her shoulder and sucked thoughtfully on his moist digits. Sakura nearly gagged. "Here I thought you'd already been broken in. You're more innocent than I realized… and I _do _prefer the innocent ones.."

Sakura began struggling with real effort now. She couldn't stand for him to lay another hand on her – to _touch _her in that way again. But it seemed that at least part of that hulking body was actually muscle, and no matter how much she writhed and threw her weight against her arms, she couldn't break free. She even tried gathering her chakra, the way Tsunade had taught her, in an effort to make her strength a better match for his. She didn't care if it gave her away. She wanted _out_!

But Sakura had neither the focus nor the level-headedness to bring her chakra under control. She was crying and sobbing without realizing, struggling to find a lash of power with which to strike back.

"Calm down," she heard Matsura command over the incessant sobbing she could hear. "Crying is wholly unattractive."

His speech was slurring. Sakura wondered if his own lust was getting the better of him, when he slumped heavily against her back, almost crushing her to the bed. It was only because of Sakura's lightning reflexes that she managed slip out from under him, though she slid straight off the bed and onto the matted floor in her haste.

Matsura fell to the mattress, wheezing. His glazed eyes narrowed on her in realization. "Little bitch…"

Then his consciousness left him.

Sakura remained huddled on the floor, breathing hard and staring at the man's heaving back as he slept. She could see he was struggling against the hold of the drugs, but even an elite ninja couldn't fight something inside his own body. Although, it was uncertain how long he'd be unconscious for. He could only have taken a small, diluted dose… and he was a _big_ man. The drugs might only last for a few minutes.

Even with this unnerving thought hanging over her head, Sakura found it difficult to move. The pain between her legs had eased, but the one in her chest seemed only to intensify with every passing moment. She knew she should have been happy and relieved to have succeeded in phase one of an extremely difficult A/S class mission…

So why did she feel like she'd failed somehow?

On her knees, Sakura crouched further down until her forehead touched the floor. Her hands were wrapped tightly in her hair, pulling at the extended locks as her eyes screwed shut and she tried to purge her memory of the mission so far. Oh god, what would she give to forget the sensation of his fingers tearing into her?

She trembled with rage, and a strange kind of anxiety that she didn't recognize until she heard Kakashi's voice.

"Sakura?"

Above all else, she was afraid of him seeing her like this.

Mistakenly, she wondered if he might not actually see her if she just stayed put on the floor and didn't say anything. How she'd missed him entering the room, she didn't know. Yet another ninja blunder that she'd have to beat herself up for at a later point when she was done with the current urge to stick her head in the oven for how far she'd let things go with Matsura.

Kakashi's footsteps came around the corner of the bed, and she felt more than saw his presence looming over her. She heard a rustle of cloth and a partially gloved hand touched her naked back tentatively. "Are you alright, Sakura?" she heard him murmur.

Sakura lunged upright rather suddenly, arms clasped protectively over her breasts as she gave him a grin. "I'm fine," she lied brightly. She knew perfectly well that her face was probably a little red from crying, even if her tears had dried. Her eyelashes were still tellingly spiked with latent moisture. Even as she beamed up at her former teacher, she saw his brow pinch in slight concern.

But if she could trust Kakashi to do one thing, it was to respect her dignity. Granted, she couldn't trust him to do much else beyond that though. That one time she'd gone away on a long mission, he'd _completely _forgotten to feed her fish – resulting in a few horrible glassy-eyed and water-logged corpses welcoming her home once the mission was over. And he'd never once paid for his round at the bar. Nor at dinner. He made a habit of making vague promises and then conveniently forgetting them. And the less said about his overall punctuality, the better.

But he knew when to step back and treat her like an adult capable of handling her own issues.

Although… it could also just have been laziness and an aversion to get involved in emotionally tiring matters.

Sakura liked to think it was the former. Kakashi couldn't be _that _heartless… possibly… maybe… unless…

Oh, hell, she couldn't really be sure about any of Kakashi's motives.

He offered her a hand and Sakura hesitated for a moment. To take his hand would probably expose a lot more of her breast than she was comfortable with. But then, it felt silly feeling shy around a familiar, trusted man like Kakashi after all she'd let Matsura see and touch. Smiling shakily, she accept his hand and got to her feet. He probably noticed her wobble, which may have been why his fingers remained closed tightly around hers even after she was safely on her feet again. She looked up at him, about to tell him that she was perfectly fine, when she realized he was staring at her chest.

That _pervert!_

Sakura opened her mouth to give him a sharp piece of her mind when he beat her to it. "You're injured."

He'd seen the blood.

"Oh… no, this?" Sakura pulled her hand away from his to wipe at the drying blood on her partially exposed breast, giving him a slightly flustered laugh. "It's nothing."

She could see him looking over her carefully. He'd seen that the skin on her chest was unbroken, and so was looking for the real injury. Sakura looked down as well and saw a small streak of blood also marred her stomach.

She may as well have had a bright flashing arrow pointing to her panty line.

Sakura looked up at the same time as Kakashi and their eyes met. Now that respect for personal boundaries and issues was gone. "Did he hurt you, Sakura?" he asked bluntly.

Sakura's mouth went dry, and she began backing away, looking for her clothes. "N-No, I… it was just-"

The back of Kakashi's hand touched against her collarbone, preventing her from walking past him. The contact burned, making Sakura twitch faintly with awareness. She tried not to show it as she looked at Kakashi again, feeling guarded.

He spoke again, slower and more meaningful. "Did he hurt you?"

The way he said it… he sounded exactly as he had that time she'd tried to make excuses as to why she'd not done the morning press-ups he'd assigned her for an entire week. As she'd mumbled her way from lie to vague lie, he'd simply kept repeating the same question, slower and more enunciated each time. "Why haven't you done them?" Until she'd been forced to confess that she simply hated getting sweaty so early in the morning. It was bad for her complexion.

Kakashi had prescribed ten laps around the training pitch at that point.

And Sakura knew now that even if she thought up excuses and lies or simply insisted that it was nothing, he would not stop asking until she told the truth.

That didn't mean she wouldn't try though.

"It's alright," she said, feigning honesty. "I got a little cut on my leg, that's all. I already healed it."

There were two faults in this lie. The first being that Sakura hardly bothered healing anything less than major, performance-threatening injuries. The second being that there was no blood anywhere on her legs, and from the way Kakashi looked down at her smooth, blood-free thighs, he saw this quite clearly for himself.

But mercifully he decided not to press the issue.

Leaning back, he gave her a smile that matched hers for fakeness perfectly. "Alright then," he said lightly, eye crinkled in pretend pleasantry. "Good job, Sakura. I knew you could do it." Then he stepped back and pointed to her pile of clothes as if he'd been personally holding them hostage until she'd answered his questions.

Feeling partly relieved and partly infuriated, she moved to pick up her yukata and wrapped it around her tightly as Kakashi gave Matsura a once-over. Sakura joined his side, still feeling faintly incensed, just as he was peeling back Matsura's eyelids to check his pupils.

"Mm." Kakashi straightened and shoved his hands into his pockets. "He's still on the verge of consciousness. He could wake up at any moment."

Sakura eyed the half naked man in distaste, before turning a curious eye on Kakashi. "In that case we'd better start looking for the vase. But… isn't that what _you're_ supposed to be doing right now?"

Kakashi shrugged aloofly. "My search led me here."

Sakura ground her teeth. "You were sticking your nose into my side of the mission weren't you? What, you didn't think I was capable of doing it without your help?" she asked bitterly. But to be honest, she was more annoyed that he hadn't arrived sooner. She probably would have been singing his praises if he'd arrived in time to stop her taking Matsura's pants off, even if his arrival at that point probably would have gotten them both killed.

"Coincidence, is all," he said easily, her words clearly brushing off him like water off a duck's back.

They both fell silent as Matsura gave a half-groan and stirred slightly, before falling silent again. Kakashi regarded the prone man carefully. "We should probably kill him," he commented.

Sakura's mouth dropped open slightly as he moved to take one of the ornamental wakizashi down from the wall. He unsheathed the short blade and let the gold encrusted scabbard clatter to the floor. But as he moved back towards the bed, Sakura's hand on his arm stopped him. He paused to look at her questioningly, before blinking with realization. "Oh, sorry," he said. He turned the blade and held it out to her. "You can do the honors."

As much as she wanted to take that blade and ram it through the old pervert's heart, she didn't think it was appropriate. To be honest, she was shocked that Kakashi was even suggesting such a thing. "We can't kill him," she whispered. "That isn't part of the mission."

"If he wakes up too soon, the mission will be over," he pointed out.

"We're not being _paid _enough to risk killing him," Sakura hissed back. "And all he's done is steal. You can't kill a man for stealing-"

"He's done _more_ that steal," Kakashi snapped. The harshness of his tone took her aback for a moment, making her hand drop from his arm. He gave her a mildly apologetic look, but they both knew he was right. With a sigh, a went on a bit more gently. "How many girls has Matsura taken to his bed? Do you think they're not worth – do you think _you're _not worth-"

"Three hundred and eighteen…"

Both Kakashi and Sakura looked sharply to Matsura, with Kakashi raising the wakizashi guardedly. But neither needed to have worried. The man was still fast asleep.

"He's talking in his sleep," Sakura breathed, frowning slightly. "I think… was he responding to what you said?"

Kakashi crouched down slowly. "Matsura-sama… what's your full name?"

"Ichiro… Matsura Ichiro…"

Sakura looked to Kakashi for confirmation, but all he did was shrug. "I can only presume that's the truth," he said eventually.

"Ask him about the vase," Sakura said, tapping his shoulder. "Where's the vase?"

"Matsura-sama," Kakashi began again. "Where is the vase you stole off a man living in Tsukoyomi valley?"

Matsura grunted again. "I have many vases…" he muttered thickly. "Where's the girl…?"

Kakashi ignored the question. "This vase is painted with gold and has a blue diamond embedded in it. There's a cockerel on the side of it."

They both waited apprehensively for the old man's response. He took so long that Sakura wondered if he'd fallen into a deeper state of sleep where he was no longer aware of them. But then he said, "On the Fifth floor… in the private gallery… down the hallway of mirrors…"

Sakura _had _to love Tsunade and her miracle drugs.

"Right." She tugged on Kakashi's black sleeve. "That's all we need. Come on, let's go."

Kakashi didn't budge. "Is there anyone else in the compound who is as strong as you, Matsura-sama?" he asked. "Who is the next strongest to you?"

Sakura realized he was checking to see if there were any other people who could pose a threat to their mission, should they run into trouble. But it was rare for people of Matsura's stature to keep around others who could rival his strength. That would only be inviting trouble. People like him kept a pack of underdogs at his beck and call and avoided taking on the elite.

"Matsura Jin… my son… he's even better than me…"

Sakura groaned aloud. That was the last thing she needed to hear. "Good grief… you mean we didn't even subdue the biggest threat?" She was a few seconds short of tearing out her artificially extended hair. "Don't tell me all that crap was for nothing."

"Where is Jin?" Kakashi asked the talkative sleeping man. "Is he in the compound?"

"He returned today… most likely sleeping off the journey in his room…"

"Where's his room?" Kakashi pressed.

"…Sixth floor…"

Kakashi nodded slowly. "If we don't raise a fuss, we should be able to avoid him," he told Sakura quietly. "We'll have to be extra discreet."

Sakura nodded grimly. "That was the plan all along, right?" she pointed out.

Kakashi stood up abruptly. "Let's go then," he said, and turned towards the door.

Sakura looked at his retreating back incredulously. "So he's not worth killing now?"

"Not if his son is anything like Sasuke."

Ah, overly powerful geniuses with personal vendettas against people who murder family. Sakura dreaded to think how powerful Jin would be if he was better than his father who already rivaled Tsunade and Jiraiya in terms of strength. Best not get on his bad side.

"Come on, Sakura," Kakashi prompted her sharply when she failed to follow as quickly as he liked. She started and pattered after him, throwing one resentful look back at Matsura's snoring body before she left. She may not have been able to stomach killing an unarmed, defenseless man, but should anything nasty befall him in the future, she wouldn't be too choked up about it.

Kakashi was waiting for her out in the brightly lit corridor. It was only then that she realized there was something different about him. "You changed your clothes," she commented. He'd taken on the uniform worn by most of the low-level ninjas around the compound.

"I have a kage bunshin being guarded downstairs. It's best if people don't notice there's two of me walking around," he answered her loftily, looking up and down the corridor carefully. "You changed your clothes too."

"It's what they gave me," she said quietly.

Kakashi glanced down at her. He must have seen something in her face, because he obviously felt compelled to ask again, "Are you sure you're alright, Sakura?" His tone was nonchalant and untroubled, but he wouldn't have asked if he wasn't at least a little concerned. "If you want I can finish this part alone and we can meet up again outside the compound near-"

"No," she cut him off. "Don't even think that. I can _do _this. This is the easy part."

Kakashi shrugged, and began leading the way to the staircase.

The trip to the fifth floor was largely quite difficult. Every now and then they heard voices and footsteps and would wind up having to duck into empty closets and storerooms to avoid being seen. It took so long to make it up three flights of stairs that Sakura began to worry that Matsura would wake up before they ever got to the fifth floor gallery. Although all this hiding brought some luck at least. On the fourth floor, Kakashi ushered her into a vacant washroom just in time to avoid the contingent of cleaners that passed by. Sakura took the brief opportunity to quickly wash the blood from her breast and stomach, and the stench of Matsura from her skin. If she took a little too long scrubbing her hands, Kakashi didn't comment. He simply waited silently, looking fixedly at the door until she found the strength of will to lower the bar of soap, unable to get much cleaner.

Then they set off again.

The fifth floor was blessedly empty, and the moment they exited the staircase, it became apparent that they were in the right place.

A long corridor, flanked by mirror after mirror stretched out before them. It turned a corner ahead of them, and in the reflection of the opposite wall, Sakura could see a distant mismatched man and girl standing at the top of a staircase.

"Hey," Sakura began, feeling cynical and tired. "Do you reckon this is the 'Hallway of Mirrors' that guy talked about?"

"Hallway of Overkill seems more appropriate," Kakashi remarked as he started down it. Sakura followed close behind, and looked to the side as the movement of her own reflection in the mirrors caught her eye.

"Oh… yuck…" She almost stopped in shock.

The girl looking back at her was pale and wan with large, darkened eyes, a wide forehead and disarrayed hair. She looked young and frail – so different from the mental image she'd been carrying around in her head for years. She'd never seen anything so further from a ninja, which was a shock. Where was the spunky hairstyle, cocksure smile and practical clothes? Who the hell was this meek little girl staring fearfully back at her?

No wonder Kakashi kept asking if she was alright. She was almost tempted to ask herself exactly the same thing. She did _not_ look well. Although florescent lighting was never kind on anyone's skin.

"Sakura, come on." While she dallied, Kakashi had already reached the end of the corridor and was disappearing around the corner. Sakura broke out into a jog to catch up and trailed behind him down another stretch of mirrored corridor before they came to dead end and a single door.

"Gallery?" Sakura guessed.

Kakashi cracked open the door the barest on inches and took a swift measure of the interior. Suddenly he through it wide and gave a nod. "Gallery," he agreed.

Like most of the other rooms in the building, the gallery was fairly square, but so large that it probably took up most of the floor. When Kakashi flipped on the lights, they could see that throughout it was littered all kinds of glass tables, glass cabinets and glass shelves, and on every available surface sat some kind of priceless artifact. There was so much valuable junk in that room that Sakura wasn't sure where to begin looking. She saw several dozen vases straight off the bat, but none of them matched the description she'd been given. She couldn't even make out the stuff on the other side of the room.

"This could take a while," Kakashi said, taking out a kunai from the pouch at his hip. "We may need an extra set of ears."

A sliced thumb and a summoning scroll later, and Pakkun was sitting wearily on the wooden floor in front of Kakashi. "Yo," rumbled the dog. Sakura wondered if this speech mannerism had been picked up from Kakashi himself.

"I need you to sit by the entrance and keep an ear out," Kakashi told the dog. "If you hear anyone approaching, let us know."

"Sure thing." The small dog yawned and trotted forward to park his furry rear by the doorway. For all his droopy eyes and mournful expression, Sakura knew he wouldn't let his master down.

Kakashi looked at Sakura. "You take that side of the room, I'll take this side. Meet in the middle."

He'd probably forgotten at this point that _she _was the one who'd been designated mission leader, and was therefore the only one allowed to be giving out such orders. But why bother arguing over pedantic little details that she agreed with anyway? Besides, if she tried to boss him around he would probably only stare at her incredulously. Feeling tired and abused by all men in general, she rolled her eyes and started wandering amongst the priceless relics. Plates, armor, swords, statues, ancient artwork… Sakura cast a bored eye over them all, interested only in finding golden cockerels and blue diamonds.

She glanced over her shoulder at Kakashi, who was leaning over a cabinet and paying no mind to her whatsoever. Pakkun still sat by the doorway, but he was too busy scratching his ear with a hind leg to notice her gaze. Sakura went back to her task at hand. Suddenly she paused over a likely customer. "Ooh."

"What?" Kakashi called across the room to her.

"Oh…" Sakura waved him off. "Just a cow. Not a cock. Sorry."

They went back to searching. Or rather, Kakashi went back to searching while Sakura continued to space off, thinking up the top twenty best ways to emasculate dirty old men. She'd gotten up to number seven, which involved an ingenious use of Shino's bugs and bodily orifices when Kakashi called her name. "Huh?" She hadn't been paying attention.

"I think we've found it," he said as Sakura joined his side, to take a look at the vase he'd located.

With a lacquered blue finish and a golden cockerel etched into the side, it seemed likely. The tinged blue stone in the cockerel's eye _could _have been a diamond, but Sakura was no expert. "I guess that's it," Sakura said. Even if it wasn't the right vase, Sakura didn't particularly care. She just wanted to go home now.

"Better make it more travel sized," Kakashi said, getting on his knees to perform a series of complicated seals that would compact the stolen vase and disguise it. While he did this, Sakura looked to where Pakkun sat by the door, keeping an eye out for intruders.

It was as Kakashi was packing away the vase-turned-kunai into his hip pouch that the small dog suddenly sprang upright. "People are coming, Kakashi," he said, running over to them with a clatter of claws on wooden veneer. "Two of them. I heard one refer to the other as Jin-sama, but they're definitely coming this-"

"Jin?" Sakura hissed, and immediately began looking around for a weapon.

Kakashi paused for a brief moment, assessing the situation. Sakura knew the thoughts running through his head. Their one exit was compromised. The room itself held no practical whatsoever. The footsteps and voices in the corridor outside were now audible to even Sakura's ears, and any minute now they were about to be discovered in a place they really shouldn't have been in… and by a man who supposedly rivaled a sannin.

"Pakkun," Kakashi hissed sharply to the dog. "Go quickly."

Pakkun didn't need to be told twice. In a discreet waft of smoke, he disappeared on the spot, leaving them to their fate. Sakura was already reaching for a hefty old samurai sword when Kakashi grabbed her wrist. "Don't be stupid," he told her sharply, and pointed across the room. "Get against the wall. Now."

Sakura obeyed, wondering what he had in mind as he left her to quickly turn out the lights again. The room was plunged into darkness. Sakura pressed her back against the cold wooden panel of the wall behind her, realizing how futile the situation was. Sure, they were perfectly hidden by darkness now, but there was only one room on this floor, and when Matsura's son entered, he would undoubtedly turn the lights on. What was the point? They'd still be caught!

Suddenly Kakashi was in front of her, standing so close that she could feel the warmth radiating off him and smell the faintly musky smell that accompanied a man who'd been traveling a full day but had yet to take a bath. By all reason, it should have been unpleasant… but to Sakura, it was oddly comforting.

A brief comfort which promptly flew out of the window when she felt him tug on the sash at her waist. "Wait – what are you-?" Sakura's hands flew to the folds her yukata, holding them together to preserve her modesty as her sash fell away. "_Kakashi-sensei!_" she hissed, feeling utterly mortified, even though he could probably see nothing through the darkness.

Probably.

But even as she attempted to close the material, Kakashi's hands were at her neckline, tugging the cloth off her shoulders with his thumbs. No matter how much she squeaked with indignity, Kakashi was having none of it. "Now really is not the time, Sakura," he admonished quietly. "Just do as I say."

Sakura realized she just had to trust him.

"Put your arms around my neck."

She complied, stiffly, locking her hands behind his nape. The action left her yukata to swing open freely, much to her embarrassment. When she felt a pair of warm hands reach inside her clothes to press against her back, her arms tightened to a near choking hold around Kakashi's neck. Her teeth ground together, restraining the fair number of expletives begging to be hissed.

However, Sakura's indignation fled the moment she felt Kakashi's knee force it's way between her thighs. Her mouth dropped open in shock when one of those unbearably hot hands slid down to cup her buttock, hoisting her firmly against the front of his body. She could feel everything. Her bare breasts against the rough cloth of his chest. Her stomach pressed against the hard plane of his abdomen. Her hips tilted in perfect alignment with his. Not one bare inch was left between them, leaving absolutely nothing to imagination.

Everything was suddenly so very intimate, and Sakura was feeling more of her old teacher than she'd ever wanted to know about. A million thoughts should have been running through her head with hyperactive speed. Rage, fear, humiliation, shyness…

But the only word she could seem to conjure up was, _Oh…_

Kakashi's hand slipped from her bag for a brief moment to tug down his mask, and from the light in the doorway, she saw a flawless line of silver outlining his strong jaw. "I'm sorry," he whispered thickly, with real feeling. "But I'm going to have to kiss you."

* * *

TBC

* * *

A/N: Oh well, there are _worse _things… XD 


	6. In which Kakashi makes an oversight

_

* * *

_

_Still a little bit of your taste in my mouth,_

_Still a little bit of you laced with my doubt,_

_Still a little hard to say what's going on._

* * *

In the Grade One Ninja Basics Handbook that all academy students received on their first day of school was a list of rules that all ninjas – even jonins – observed. They were more like guidelines, but they effectively outlined the responsibilities and attitudes that Konoha ninja were expected to display. 

Rule number one was: _Duty before honor._

Beneath was a short explanation for the ninja newbies as to what this entailed. Something about missions always coming first. That ninja should be willing to sacrifice anything for the sake of a mission – be it their dignity, reputation or even their lives. Sakura couldn't remember the exact wording, but Iruka-sensei had paraphrased this rule as meaning 'Even if you have to fight dirty or in a back-handed way to win… go for it.' Although Sakura was sure he had just been sugarcoating it for the kiddies. There were probably darker connotations to that particular rule.

Rule number eleven was interesting: _Romantic entanglements with teammates are discouraged._

After Sakura had found a place on Team Seven, she'd actually ripped this page out of her book. She couldn't recall what explanation had been given about this _guideline_, but it probably had something to do with altered perceptions and emotions, which all tied neatly into rule twenty-five:

_Shinobi must keep emotions to themselves_.

Sakura failed to see how this was relevant anymore. The best ninja she'd ever met was a volatile pot of emotions who didn't give a hoot about hiding them – they were his strength. She'd seen what happened to the ones who internalized their emotions; the ones who let hate and misery eat away at their heart until they went insane. Given the choice between being a Naruto or a Sasuke, she'd rather be a Naruto. He had fewer brain issues.

But it was rule thirty-four that Sakura remembered at that moment in time.

_When compromised: change the compromise._

Explanation?

If you happen to be found sneaking around reprehensibly in a place you shouldn't be with no chance of rescue or escape, attempt to pass it off as something more minor than it actually is.

i.e. Grab the nearest person and start frenching their brains out.

Clichés were clichés because they _worked._

Of course, Sakura should have known that Kakashi wouldn't go about his business half-heartedly. He took his job far too seriously for that. He wanted the clothes off, the legs spread and the hands in places no casual teammate or friend should place them. Anything to give that little extra boost of authenticity…

* * *

The statement, "I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to kiss you" ranked right up there with the likes of "I'm sorry, but I'm going to have give you a free vacation," or "I'm sorry, but I may just have to grant one of your biggest sexual fantasies right here and now." 

Sakura couldn't deny the immense fluttering feelings rushing through her belly at his heavy words. A combination of his body pressed so intimately against hers and the adrenalin rushing through her veins had tripped something inside of her. It made her feel giddy and nervous, but overwhelmingly hungry for something. Something more than just his hand against her bottom and a whispered apology. This was the most beautiful man in creation holding her. She almost felt the need to say, "No, _I'm _sorry, but I'm going to have to kiss _you_."

How could she resist?

But then… the impenetrable fact that the most beautiful man in creation was, in actual fact, her teacher, confused things somewhat.

This was Kakashi-sensei. The lazy bum who sat and read pornography while his protégés trained and sparred themselves into the ground under his not-so-watchful eye. The man who, when the bill arrived at the table, was suddenly nowhere to be found. The man who sucked snake poison out of her toe when she was twelve and made her look away the entire time so as not to see his face. The man who had teased her about sandlefoot for the following six months.

The man who murdered her goldfish.

But before Sakura had a real chance to ponder over all the psychological issues this whole situation could produce, Kakashi bent his head and pressed his lips against hers.

Even though it was her first, Sakura had expected to have at least _some _idea of how it should feel. She'd listened to Ino drone on about it enough times. According to the Pig, there were many kinds of kisses. Bad ones. Good ones. Sloppy ones. Chaste ones. Ones so slow and tender that they made you want to melt. Others that were hard and hungry which made your toes curl and your clothes fall off (or so said Ino).

Sakura wasn't sure which category Kakashi's kiss fit into. It felt like too many things at once. Gentle – almost cautious – as if testing her reaction, but with an impatient edge that reminded her where they were. Sakura's fingers curled uncertainly into the soft hair at his nape as his mouth slanted firmly against hers. Warmth pooled in her stomach and a faint tremor carried down her spine. Her eyes fluttered shut when she felt the hand on her bottom give a light squeeze. She should have been horrified. All she could do was pull herself a little closer.

The voices were getting louder, their conversation almost discernible through the half-closed door. Sakura wished they would go away. Not only to avoid complications with the mission, but just so that Kakashi would keep on doing this wonderful thing to her for a bit longer…

"Moan," he murmured against her lips. His low dulcet tone seemed a little deeper and rougher than usual, and the mere sound of it reverberated through Sakura's brain. To be honest, she didn't even register what he'd said. But his voice alone was enough to evoke a soft, cracked moan in the back of her throat.

Kakashi's hand splayed through her disheveled hair as the other tightened on the underside of her thigh, tugging her leg up a fraction to cradle his hips. He shifted against her. "Louder," he rasped.

A raw groan tore from Sakura's throat. A little deliberate perhaps, but not without feeling. She knew why he wanted her to make noise; only people up to no good kept quiet. People stealing pottery would not moan so loud they would attract attention.

Vaguely she was aware that the approaching conversation out in the corridor had suddenly gone mute. She'd been overheard, and with that she felt Kakashi smile against her lips – a rare glimpse into his thoughts that she wasn't quite used to. She'd only seen him smile for the first time earlier that day. For her to feel it against her own lips placed some incredibly mixed feelings in her heart.

Who exactly was this man?

Footsteps were approaching at a more hurried pace. Kakashi slipped one of her hands from his shoulder to push it under his shirt, leading it to splay across his back. Sakura followed his lead gladly, more than happy to give the finely toned muscles a good grope. His hand left hers and quite abruptly settled over her breast. Sakura gasped at the incredible warmth of his large palm settling over her as if he _owned_ the damn thing. He didn't grab at her the way Matsura had; didn't pinch or tug at her sensitive nipples. He simply flattened his hand against it, almost in a respectful kind of way as his fingers following the curve and pressing gently in a way that made Sakura want to arch her back. Then he muttered a soft and low approval against her mouth. "That's a good girl."

He shouldn't have said that. It was bad enough that his voice alone did funny things to her insides, without him speaking such unintentionally erotic words. Because good girls didn't do this.

Good girls didn't rub their thighs against their teacher's hip. They didn't shamelessly drape themselves over men in darkened rooms. They didn't get so carried away with an act that every pretend touch, kiss and caress became real and heartfelt. And they certainly didn't nearly orgasm when they were told they were good girls.

Sakura's eyebrows pinched together as another needy moan pushed from her throat. The tingling between her legs that she'd first tasted back in the forest came back in full force, and Sakura clung helplessly to the broad shoulders of her former teacher as she struggled to cope with all the new and frightening sensations bombarding her. But his kiss did nothing to quell them. If anything, the lazy slide and tug of his lips against hers only fanned the flames.

Then the door slammed open. "What the hell are you doing in here?"

Sakura didn't have to fake her dismayed gasp when Kakashi's mouth was torn from hers. They both blinked dazedly at the square of light that filled the doorway, looking every bit the pair of interrupted lovers that they were trying to be.

"Um…" Kakashi began, but the intelligent thought trailed off there. Sakura knew he was just acting, which made her feel a little silly, since her muzzy expression and sluggish thoughts were all quite real.

The man standing in the doorway was hardly more than a silhouette, but even Sakura could see that the resemblance to a certain old pervert was uncanny. Although this man was slim and didn't seem to be much older than Kakashi, his long hair and beard were already graying with stress. Behind him stood a bespectacled older man who was undoubtedly a retainer, and in his hand he held an antique samurai helmet which was probably some bounty he'd picked up (or stolen) during his trip.

"The gallery is off limits to staff," said the man who was undoubtedly Matsura's son, Jin. "Get out!"

Sakura and Kakashi jumped apart like their magnetic polarities had just been reversed. Sakura fumbled to pick up her sash and close her yukata again as Kakashi tucked in his shirt and snapped his mask back into place. "Sorry, Matsura-sama," he said, almost meekly. "It won't happen again."

Jin stepped back and glowered at the pair as they trudged out the room. "If it does I won't be so lenient next time."

"Thank you, Matsura-sama," Kakashi bowed humbly and took Sakura's hand to lead her away down the corridor. She caught her own rosy blush in the mirrors they passed, as well as a pair of kiss-swollen lips.

_Oh, hell,_ she thought as her hand tingled inside of his. _How am I supposed to ever look him in the eye again?_

They didn't stop power walking till they hit the stairs, where Kakashi promptly dropped her hand and turned seriously to her. "I'm sorry for that, Sakura," he said, sounding suitably hangdog. "It was the least problematic move, and I didn't want to risk a fight. Still, I'm sorry if it made you uncomfortable."

Well, it _had_. But it made her feel many, _many_ other things too, half of which she didn't want to think about or understand. So Sakura opted for smiling and waving a hand dismissively. "Oh, no, it's nothing," she gushed. "Don't worry about it. We were just doing our job."

Kakashi sighed, his eyebrow tilting up. "You were good," he said, sounding surprised. "If I'd walked in on that, I would have believed it too."

Sakura didn't know quite what to say to that. It was best that he just believe it was all a very good acting job, like his effort was, rather than know that every moan had been real, and that there were still twitches of desire zinging through her stomach just looking at him. Sakura turned her eyes to the floor, fiddling with the cuffs of her sleeves as she blushed again. "It was nothing."

"Have you ever considered being an actress?" he asked conversationally. "You'd go far."

Now Sakura's gaze narrowed slightly as she looked up at him. He was teasing her now. He knew that he was making her uncomfortable, and Hatake Kakashi _lived_ to make people uncomfortable. It was even possible that he knew how personally she'd taken their little encounter… and…

_Oh, _god_, don't let that be the case…!_

Swiftly changing subjects, Sakura folded her arms. "You still have the vase?"

He patted his pouch.

Sakura followed his gesture. Suddenly her eyes widened. "Um… you're kind of bleeding all over the place?" she pointed out with a grimace.

"Hm?" Kakashi lifted his red stained thumb and gazed in surprise. "Oh… that was just from calling Pakkun."

"Ew! You got it all over my clothes!" Sakura squeaked indignantly, pulling a face at the sticky red fingerprints on her neckline and sash.

"Sorry."

"Do you really have to cut yourself so deeply?"

"Sorry."

"You'll die of blood loss one of these days."

"Probably."

"I'm not healing that, you know."

"That's fine."

"Where did you leave the pack? You brought some bandages, right?"

"It's alright," Kakashi waved off her concern, and pulled down his mask. "I'll just suck it till it stops bleeding."

Sakura raised an eyebrow at how blithely he'd just revealed his face to her again. "Careful, Kakashi-sensei. Your face is becoming quite the cheap thrill," she teased. Even so, she drank in the sight of him all over again. From the tip of his perfectly shaped nose to the _cute_ dimple at the corner of his mouth. With his thumb lodged firmly in his mouth, he gave her a lazy glance and a 'follow me' gesture as he started down the stairs again. Sakura traipsed after him, cursing his appealing dimples and beauty spots. If he wasn't so damned pretty, perhaps the butterflies in her stomach would have faded by now.

As they turned on the lower landing to descend the next flight of steps, Kakashi stumbled into the wall. Sakura put out a hand to steady him, immediately concerned. It wasn't like him to trip over his own feet. "Sensei, are you ok?" she asked.

He straightened, looking slightly surprised. "I'm fine."

Well, even elite ninjas had their clumsy moments. Best not to draw attention to it, Sakura thought. Even Kakashi probably had his dignity.

But not halfway down the next staircase, it happened again. Kakashi sagged suddenly against the wall as if somebody had just knocked the air clean out of him. Extremely worried now, Sakura seized his shoulder to keep him from falling down the remaining steps. "Get a hold of yourself," she hissed. She could hear people moving about in the corridors ahead of them. Now would be an incredibly bad time for Kakashi to get a fainting spell. She didn't _think_ he'd exerted himself especially, but during her time with Matsura it was possible that he'd whipped out the sharingan a few times in his scouting. This was usually how it went. He'd be fine right up until the fatigue caught up with him and he could stave it off no longer. When that happened, it was best to just yell "Timber!" and get the hell out of the way.

But suddenly Kakashi was back on his feet. "I'm alright," he reassured her. "Just dizzy."

That didn't sound good. "Don't get ill on me, Kakashi-sensei," she warned, keeping a tight hold of his sleeve as they took the remaining steps with more care. When they reached the landing, she released her grip. "I'm not carrying you back."

"That's fair," he said with a sigh and a faint smile on his lovely lips. "Maybe you can just drag me?"

Sakura's skin prickled with dread. "Kakashi-sensei…"

Without missing a beat, Kakashi's eye slid shut and he pitched sideways. Sakura watched in horror as he hit the floor with a sound thud and gave a small groan before going still. She knelt beside him and gave him a hasty shake. "Sensei!" she hissed. "Kakashi-sensei – get up. Now's not a good time to take a nap."

His only response was a soft snore.

She rolled him over onto his side and ran a hand across his forehead. No temperature. Dilated pupil. Deep, even breathing. Blood on his lip – but that was from his thumb. A thumb… which…

_Oh no… he didn't…?_

Sakura peeped down the front of her yukata and gave a great sigh of despair.

There was blood on her breast again. Not hers this time, but Kakashi's. He'd only gone and felt up her drug laden breasts and then stuck his fingers in his mouth.

"You _idiot_!" she seethed with real menace and fury. "You stupid, stupid _idiot!"_

Now what was she going to do?

She couldn't drag him into a closet and hide while she waited for the effects of the drug to wear off. Matsura was bound to wake before that happened, and how long would it take them to realize the vase was missing? They had to leave _now_. But Kakashi was in no fit state to travel…

And she was certain she could hear Jin and his retainer coming back from the gallery above them.

"You are the _worst_ teacher _ever_," she told the unconscious man heatedly as she took one of his arms and a leg in each hand. With carefully measured chakra control, she heaved him into the air and draped him over her shoulders like an extremely large rug. His weight almost buckled her instantly before she corrected her chakra release. "I can't take you anywhere, can I?" she muttered, as she quickly hurried away from the approaching voices above and practically fled down the next flight of steps.

She was barreling down the last flight of steps when she met a cleaning girl coming the other way. She started terrifically at the sight of petite little Sakura lugging a six foot man over her shoulders. "Is he alright?" the girl asked, wide-eyed as Sakura shot past. From the blush staining the girl's cheeks, and the way her wide eyes were fixed shamelessly on Kakashi's face, Sakura reckoned she'd noticed how good-looking her sensei was.

No wonder Kakashi wore a mask all the time. Normal social interactions were probably quite cumbersome when everyone around you just stared and drooled.

"He's fine," Sakura called back. "Just taking him to get some fresh air."

Slight pause. "Are _you_ alright?"

"I'm fine. Hollow bones, this one," Sakura said, hefting Kakashi for effect. "Do you know where the nearest door is? Only I want to get him outside before he starts vomiting blood again."

Alarmed, the girl pointed down the corridor she'd just emerged from. "Through the kitchens. Do you want me to get the medics?"

"Sure, go for it." They wouldn't be hanging around long enough to deal with them.

The kitchens were easy to find, she just had to follow the smell of frying tempura. The moment she charged through the doors, she received a few dozen bewildered and baffled stares from all the kitchen workers. "Sorry," she said quickly. "Where's the door? I need to get him outside before-"

A few dozen hands pointed wordlessly across the room to where a boy with a basket of cabbages stood in an open door. Beyond him was the open night.

Hallelujah.

Sakura muttered her thanks to the kitchen workers as she dashed towards the door and brushed past the cabbage boy on her way out. Standing in the darkened inner compound, it took a moment for Sakura to get her bearings. The northern star was directly ahead of her, meaning Konoha was straight east of where she stood.

But how to get past the perimeter walls without making a scene?

"Oi, you there."

Sakura stiffened and turned. A soldier dressed in the same garb as Kakashi was peering at her through the dim lamplight. "What's going on?" he demanded.

"Um… he's a bit ill," Sakura tried. "Just bringing him out to get some fresh air-"

"Put that man down." The ninja seemed fairly alarmed that Sakura could even carry him.

"I think it's best if I just took him a little further-"

But by then the ninja seemed to have twigged that she wasn't just an ordinary serving girl. "Drop our man and give yourself up." His hand was reaching for the sword hilt just visible over his shoulder.

Sakura groaned inwardly. She'd known this mission would be a complete mess from the start. Things weren't going to be getting much better.

"Can't do that. Sorry." Sakura gave the man a quick, apologetic smile before she lifted her foot and slammed it back down to earth.

The ground splintered and shook, and a shockwave of ripped earth flashed towards the other man. He had enough time to throw up his hands to shield his face from the flying debris before the ground fell away beneath him. By then, Sakura was already charging towards the perimeter wall.

"Stop her!" she heard someone cry out behind her. "She's a spy!"

"The Umino man disappeared! It was a clone!"

"Get them! Get them both!"

"They're spies!"

Sakura had to lurch sideways as a volley of shuriken struck the earth at her feet. She didn't need to look behind her to calculate the number of men pursuing her. The chakra presence told her there were at least eight.

The perimeter wall was fast approaching. The two men standing guard at the top drew their kunai, waiting for her to inevitably scale it.

They would be disappointed.

Gathering a new surge of chakra in her arm, she gave a sharp cry as she released it upon impacting the wall. Six feet of solid concrete and plaster crumbled away like badly packed onigiri. Sakura charged through the dust and the rubble, ignoring the stunned and horrified cries ahead and behind her. The second wall was coming up. Sakura pulled back her fist again and boosted her chakra again. One more fell strike and the wall shattered, allowing Sakura to run through with barely a break in her stride,

Idly, Sakura wished Kakashi was awake to see this. She was sure that he would be pleased with her growth.

But her friends and teammates were _always_ unconscious for all her coolest stunts.

By the third wall, Sakura's wrist was sore, but she ploughed through regardless, and spun away from a spattering of arrows that flew her way. She was out into trees, and that was all that mattered. There were at least twenty men following her now, but they wouldn't be able to get a clear shot of her as she wove and zigzagged her way between the foliage.

They were probably only chunin level from what Kakashi had told her about the manpower of Matsura's compound. And while Sakura didn't fancy taking them all on, she knew of certain diversionary tactics would be good enough to fool them.

Cracking off half a dozen shadow clones, Sakura sharply changed direction and headed south. Four men followed her, the rest went after her copies. Three more clones and a sharp turn east and she'd whittled down her pursuers to one. He was pervasive, throwing shuriken like they were going out of fashion and tossing jutsu that made tree roots creep up to snag her feet.

Another round of clones and she soon lost him too.

Still desperate to put as much distance between herself and the compound and cover up her trails from any dedicated trackers, she headed towards the sound of running water. A river. She alighted it with chakra in her feet and ran its course as it flowed south. It was leading her away from Konoha, but Tsunade had made it clear that she and Kakashi were not to leave any indicators that they were allied with the Leaf village. It would do no good for any trackers to follower her directly to Konoha.

But Sakura didn't get far before she had to stagger onto the bank to take a break. Her breath was coming in short pants and her arms and legs felt cold – a sure sign that she'd expended too much chakra. Unlike Naruto, she didn't have vast wells of the stuff to dip into whenever the need took her, and Kakashi's weight was beginning to sap at her strength. She had a limit, and if she pushed herself too far she'd only wind up pulling a Kakashi and crashing face first into the ground, which wasn't nearly half as fun as it looked.

She let Kakashi slide off her shoulders and into the lee of a craggy rock formation. He was still fast asleep, though his hair and clothes were completely covered in concrete dust. It made him look even more pale and washed out than he was already. Sakura took a moment to brush some of the dust from his cheek before she caught herself and pulled her hand back guiltily, even though she wasn't sure if there was anything to feel guilty about.

Groaning, Sakura drew up her knees and buried her face in them. She didn't need this. She didn't need _any_ of this. She was tired and confused, and she wanted nothing more than to be back in her cramped little apartment with her familiar smelling bed covers and a soft mattress beneath her. Instead she was out here in the middle of god-only-knew-where, shivering with cold and fatigue and only half a moon to see by. The pack Kakashi had brought which contained all their food and money and emergency blankets was back at the compound.

Sakura didn't feel like popping back to fetch it.

She didn't feel like scouting around for a nearby village either. For a start, she didn't have enough chakra left to lug Kakashi around with her, and she had no intention of leaving him in the middle of the forest with enemy nins roaming around.

It seemed they were stuck.

Sighing, Sakura got to her feet. "Better make the most of it," she said to no one in particular as she walked off into the trees. The air tasted damp, meaning it was probably going to rain in a few hours. They'd need some kind of shelter, and without any blankets it was going to be difficult and more than a little uncomfortable. Even so, Sakura got to work.

She selected the slimmest trees she could find, the ones she could encircle completely with one arm. A sharp kick to the base shattered the roots, enabling her to haul the trees one by one to the craggy rock where Kakashi lay. She propped them at an angle to the rocks, packing them side by side to form a sloping kind of shelter over her oblivious teammate.

It began to rain as Sakura wrenched her seventh tree out of the ground. Little drops of water tapped her on the head and shoulders, falling from the sky with gaining speed. But her task was only half complete and Kakashi's stretched out form was still exposed to the elements.

So pathetic. For being one of Konoha's best ninja, he certainly spent a lot of time on his back – usually in a hospital bed.

The rain grew worse as the minutes wore on. Sakura's hands were red and raw and splinters dotted her fingers. Her hair was hanging in limp wet swaths around her shoulders as she finally set down the last tree and began arranging branches thick with leaves over the trunks. It was partly for camouflage, and partly to keep the rain from trickling down the gaps in the trees.

When she was certain she'd done the best job possible given her waning energy reserves, Sakura joined Kakashi beneath the shelter, crawling to sit near his head. It wasn't especially spacious under there, and Kakashi was taking up a lot of floor space quite inconsiderately, but Sakura was too tired to care. Although for a brief moment she vaguely wished Yamato was around with his wondrous ability to make fully furnished houses sprout out of the ground like mushrooms.

Sakura shuddered.

She didn't want to think about mushrooms. Needless to say, she'd never put one in her mouth ever again.

Kakashi stirred softly. Sakura glanced down at him and realized it was probably because there was a rather prominent leak splashing down onto his exposed nose. Clearly it was not enough to rouse the ninja, but it certainly made him uncomfortable.

Not entirely sure if it was the right thing to do, Sakura helped him out. She grasped the fabric of his shirt and tugged him gently towards her until his head rested on her lap. The leak now dribbled mercilessly down onto his chest. Sakura put her hand over the damp patch, keeping her old sensei from getting too wet.

Of course, her hair wasn't helping matters. There was so much of it now that it had retained a lot of water and was dripping all over poor Kakashi's face. He squirmed again, rediscovering his discomfort.

Well… it was about time to get rid of it anyway. She didn't need it anymore.

Leaning over to tug one of Kakashi's parrying kunai from his hip, she brought the blade to her hair and began to chop away at it. She wasn't particularly careful, but then she could always get Ino to neaten it up when she got home. For now it would remain a jagged, chin-length bob. Sakura dropped the kunai onto the puddle of pink strands that had collected beside her and gave a long sigh.

She looked back down at Kakashi and frowned. His face was still exposed to her, relaxed and blank. He looked ageless. He could have been thirty. He could have been twenty. If he frowned a bit more (which wasn't difficult) he might even have passed for forty. Sakura amused herself by poking at his dimples and beauty spots until he groaned unhappily and moved his hand vaguely.

He was gradually coming back.

Sakura decided to talk to him. It might help bring him round a little faster, and it would keep her awake and focused for a little longer until that happened. But what to talk about?

"Nice weather, huh?" she put to Kakashi.

Kakashi didn't agree, judging by his silence.

Sakura rubbed her hands over her face. "I'm so tired…" She meant that both physically and emotionally. She didn't think she'd pushed her chakra limits this hard since she'd faced off with the Akatsuki. She didn't think she'd gone through this much stress since Sasuke had left. Two sexual encounters with two different men in the space of one day. Both were completely polar experiences. Matsura had disgusted and shamed her. Kakashi had…

Sakura wasn't sure what Kakashi had done, other than evoke some feelings that were probably quite inappropriate regarding their relationship and ranks. She shouldn't have read any further into it than seeing it as a simple performance to cast off suspicion for being found in a restricted area. That was how Kakashi probably saw it.

It was all automatic to him. Kissing someone for the sake of a mission was probably no different than anything else he did for a mission. He almost certainly didn't even see her that way. To him she would always be some love-obsessed twelve year old girl who spent more time coordinating her outfit than she did preparing for a mission.

And Sakura wasn't even sure she wanted him to see her as anything more than that…

But she couldn't stop looking at his lips. They were parted just enough for her to catch a glimpse of his teeth (he clearly didn't use the excuse of a mask to skimp on dental hygiene). Oddly enough, his canine was intriguing her. Like most people's, it was slightly longer and sharper than the incisors, but it struck her as such a bizarrely normal trait that it was almost mind-blowing.

Obviously she was still getting used to the idea that Hatake Kakashi even possessed teeth in the first place.

Idly she wondered what that canine would feel like under the tip of her tongue.

"Ack!"

Sakura quickly tugged up Kakashi's mask over his face, or else risk getting any more of those strange thoughts. It was a little better. Now that she couldn't see his mouth, she couldn't entertain any more ideas of leaning down and seeing if a second kiss would be as nice as the first.

_You have to stop thinking about this…!_

"So," Sakura declared loudly. "I was thinking of getting a new fridge! The one I've got keeps turning off, you see, and all my food gets soggy. I have to scrounge of Naruto sometimes… which is really unpleasant. He's got things in _his _fridge that I swear actually stop talking when you open the door and just stare at you."

This topic was probably doing nothing to keep anyone awake.

"Naruto says that you're still dropping by to do spot checks every now and then," Sakura directed to the older ninja resting against her lap. "It surprised me. I didn't think you really spent time with any of us after I graduated. Although… by the look of Naruto's fridge, clearly you haven't been round in a while."

Sakura tapped her fingers against her thigh as she pondered this wearily. "Of course, it could just be me that weren't talking to. I'm pretty sure I saw you talking to Sasuke outside the academy a few months ago. And you've definitely visited Naruto at least once or twice." She trailed her eyes over his face, taking note of the eyepatch covering his sharingan. She removed it gently, hoping he'd be more comfortable without it. "There was that time I waved to you at the headquarters and you pretty much ignored me," she said softly, grinning sheepishly at her own petty tendency to hang onto the most unimportant, yet hurtful occasions. "What was that about, huh? I didn't kill _your _goldfish, did I?"

Kakashi gave a soft sigh. "You were in my blind spot."

Sakura flinched in surprise. "Kakashi-sensei? You're awake?"

He didn't respond. His breathing was the same as before, even an undisturbed. His eyelashes weren't even flickering.

Still asleep.

Curiously, Sakura bent forward. "What's your full name…?"

"Most people call me…Kakashi-sama…"

Sakura scowled and gave him a poke. "You _are _awake!"

"Wish I wasn't…" he mumbled, eyes still shut. "My head's killing me."

Sakura felt a pang of sympathy as she pressed a cool hand to his forehead. But there was nothing she could do for him. Even though, theoretically, she could use her chakra to calm the swelling, it wasn't wise. Even Tsunade didn't use her chakra to mess around with people's heads; not unless absolutely necessary. It often produced nasty side effects that were worse than the original problem.

So Kakashi would just have to live with it. "You can go back to sleep if you want," she offered. "I'll just wake you if anything comes up."

Kakashi wasn't interested in that option. "Where are we?"

"A few miles south east of Matsura's compound," she told him.

Kakashi cracked open an eye. "That's not very far."

Sakura huffed. "It felt further, especially with your dead weight on my back."

"Sorry…" he said lightly, dragging out the last syllable sleepily. "Bit of an oversight on my part."

Sakura looked at him coolly. "Don't think I'm not going to tell everyone about this. The elite Hatake Kakashi! Drugs himself on an A-class mission and has to be carried home in the arms of a little girl!"

Kakashi looked at her just as coolly. "Sure. You tell them that," he croaked. "Of course, that would mean having to explain exactly _how_ I got drugged in the first place."

Ah. Point. It would be quite hard to avoid the subject of how the drugs had gotten from her breasts to his mouth without digging herself a nice big hole in the process. "Fine," she grumbled, flushing slightly. "But I at least get to tell them you did _something_ stupid?"

Kakashi sighed and closed his eyes. "Do you remember a time when you used to look up to and revere me?"

Sakura wrinkled her nose. "If I ever looked up to you, it was only because you were taller," she teased.

Kakashi's eyebrows tilted up, the left one broken up by his scar. "Kids can be so cruel."

Sakura smiled softly. "I'm not a kid anymore, Kakashi-sensei."

"No… I know," he breathed. Both his eyes slid open a fraction, one dark and unreadable, the other blood red and spinning slowly. To anyone else, it would have been a creepy sight, but Sakura had seen it too many times to fear it. She'd seen the power of the sharingan, and witnessed the ballistic destruction the Mangekyou could wreak. She knew that staring into the sharingan was not unlike staring down the barrel of a gun… but she trusted the man behind it implicitly. He would never hurt her.

At least not intentionally.

Suddenly Kakashi drew in a breath. "Why did you agree to it, Sakura?"

She blinked at him. "Eh?"

"The mission," he said. "Why did you accept the mission?"

Sakura's mouth worked for a moment, trying to cope with the spotlight that had just landed on her… trying to remember what her motivation had been. Well, even if she couldn't voice her personal reasons, she could give him the logical reason. "I was the most suitable for it, that's why."

Kakashi shook his head once. She felt the weight roll against her thigh. "No, you weren't," he said evenly. His eyes were flat and hooded, giving nothing away. Sakura quickly regretted replacing his mask… because she had a feeling his mouth would have told her more than his eyes. She could only guess that it was quirked downwards at that moment with displeasure. "You were one of the least suitable."

Slightly stung by that assessment, Sakura clenched her teeth. "Is that what you thought? Then why didn't you tell Tsunade to go pick someone else? Someone better?"

"I did."

Sakura restrained the urge to boot him off her lap and out into the rain. "Lovely. Sorry for being such a burden to you, Kakashi-_senpai_. Although I shouldn't be surprised. You've been doing your best to ignore my existence for the last year or so, it makes sense that you'd try to move me off missions with you-"

An icy cold hand closed over her mouth, shutting off the beginnings of her tirade. Kakashi didn't look impressed with her. "Why did you lie to Tsunade-sama?"

Sakura pried his hand away from her mouth and gently began rubbing it between hers to give it some warmth. "You'll have to be more specific… I lie to her quite a lot…" Although she was pretty sure which instance he was referring to.

"You were a virgin… weren't you?"

He said it so calmly, so assuredly, that Sakura knew she didn't have a hope in hell of convincing him otherwise. He _knew_. Sullenly, she kept rubbing his hand. "When did you realize?" she asked dully.

"I suspected the moment you said it in the office," he said gently. "I realized it when Shikamaru told me you propositioned an entire bar."

Shit. She'd have to choke that guy once she got home. How troublesome.

A deep blush spread over Sakura's face, mostly in anger – not all of which was directed at Shikamaru but at the man before her.

"Then why didn't you stop me coming?" she ground out. "If you knew, why did you let me do it?"

"You're not a kid anymore, Sakura," he responded heavily. "You can't keep relying on adults to make the decisions for you. Not when you're an adult yourself. I trusted you had your own good reasons for doing it, that's why I didn't interfere."

Sakura wanted to cry. She wasn't nearly as grown up as he thought. "I didn't have a good reason… I just didn't understand. I didn't _realize_ it would be like that," she told him shakily. "And because of you! I didn't want you to think less of me for not being able to do it."

Kakashi was silent for a moment. "There's nothing wrong with being a virgin, Sakura. It's not a disease that needs to be cured as soon as possible, and you seriously shouldn't be seeing it as some sort of handicap-"

"That's a bit rich coming from Mr. Lost-Mine-When-I-Was-Eleven!" Sakura shot at him.

To his credit, Kakashi remained mostly impassive, but she didn't miss the brief _whatthefuck! _squint that quickly smoothed into curious nonchalance. "Mm?" He raised an eyebrow. "Who told you that?"

Sakura fidgeted. "Well… it's common knowledge. It's what everyone says about you…" She couldn't quite believe she was having this discussion with Kakashi.

"Well, it's not true," he said eventually, much to her relief, before adding, "It was more like twelve anyway…"

Sakura gaped at him. "That's not much better!"

Kakashi shrugged and looked away from her again. As Sakura stewed in her own disbelief and embarrassment, he seemed to mull over his thoughts. After a few minutes of rain filled respite, he sighed. "I _am _sorry."

Sakura looked down at him tiredly. "For what?"

"For many things," he replied distantly. "But mainly for not acting when I should have. The moment I realized, I should have asked for someone else."

Sakura frowned at that. While in a way she agreed, she was still fairly glad that she'd gotten this small chance to work with her estranged teacher again. And if he _had _brought someone else along… would he have kissed them the way he'd kissed her?

Holy crap… it would have been Ino, wouldn't it?

"Although I am glad you came along," Kakashi went on, a little more cheerfully. "No one can kick their way out of trouble quite the way you can, Sakura-chan. And if you hadn't helped me find the vase, I would have looked pretty silly making out with myself."

"I would have envied Jin walking in on _that_." Sakura tilted her head. "You still have the vase, right?"

Kakashi patted his pocket, just as he'd done back in the compound. Only this time he froze. "Oh…" His eyes bolted wide open as if someone had just stabbed him in the gut.

"What?" Sakura asked, alarmed.

"Icha Icha Chaos is gone…!"

Lacking a pillow with which to smother over his face, Sakura smacked her head back against the rocks. "I don't believe this…"

For the most part, she was quite insulted. Kakashi's response to Sakura's 'lost' virginity had been a sigh and a 'oops, what an oversight'. His response to lost pornography were heart palpitations and profuse sweating.

"No – wait – I left it in the pack," Kakashi remembered, looking relieved. "Where's the pack?"

Sakura avoided his gaze. "Back at the compound," she said quietly.

Kakashi sighed miserably.

"It's not the end of the world," she told him hotly. "Just buy a new one when we get back."

"But that was a signed copy-"

"You _know_ Jiraiya-sama personally!" Contrary to her earlier feelings of wanting to kiss this man senseless, now she just wanted to throttle him. "Get him to sign it again. You couldn't read it now anyway, you've got a headache. And I bet you couldn't even hold it – your hands are just blocks of ice!"

Sakura set to work rubbing the other hand she'd neglected, letting her chakra touch against him to spread some of her warmth. Kakashi gave her a sharp look – well, sharp considering his condition, so it was more like the bleary '_wha?_' of a drunken sloth. "Don't bother," he said. "You're too tired."

She conceded, and settled instead for just blowing against his palm. She could feel his eyes still trained on her though.

"You're a good ninja, Sakura. You're a good person too," he said rather seriously. "I don't think anyone else would have been able to escape that place while having to lug me behind them. You held it together, even after what we put you through."

"We?" Sakura blinked.

"Matsura and I."

Sakura scoffed. "Well – Matsura, maybe. But you… I mean… that was different-"

"Was it really?" Kakashi interrupted flatly. "I pretty much forced myself on you."

"But it was different," Sakura mumbled, blushing heavily. "We were just doing our job – and it wasn't exactly unpleasant."

Kakashi raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

"I mean… I don't really have a lot to compare it with, but it was quite nice really." _Shut up, shut up, shut up, Sakura! While you still have some dignity! _

"…not a lot to compare it with?"

"It was my first kiss…"

There was that I've-just-been-stabbed-in-the-gut look again. She'd probably induced a small heart attack. "Sakura, I-"

"It doesn't matter now," she cut in, feeling the fatigue creep through her bones. "It's over. It's done. There's nothing to be done about it. You can't take back some things." No matter how much she wished she could. The memory of Matsura's fingers tearing into her would be a memory she'd loath forever. "We shouldn't even be talking about this now. You need to sleep off the rest of your drugs."

"You need to sleep more," Kakashi pointed out, he still looked a little wary. The effect of her 'first kiss' bomb still hadn't worn off.

"It's best if the one who keeps watch isn't under the effect of tranquilizers," she replied archly. "Now close your eyes."

With the hand that wasn't trying to rub warmth back into Kakashi's, she covered his forehead and began to lightly press and massage a few of the known headache trigger points that Tsunade had taught her about. Within seconds she felt Kakashi's whole body relax and a sigh escaped his masked lips. "That's nice," he rumbled.

The little comment warmed her. It was nice to know he benefited from her help, even for something as small as this, since most of the time it was the other way around. Within minutes he was asleep again. Sakura smoothed her hand over his scruffy hair and let it fall back to her side. The fingers of her other hand were threaded with Kakashi's.

She decided not move it.

* * *

TBC 


	7. In which everyone stays sober

_

* * *

_

_When you lose something you can't replace,  
When you love some one but it goes to waste,  
Could it be worse? _

* * *

Sakura could count the number of nightmares she'd ever had on a single hand. Of course, she didn't count the only mildly disturbing and upsetting dreams, since they were a regular occurrence in her line of work. 

The real nightmares, the ones that trapped her inside her own mind like the worst kind of genjutsu were rare and far between. It wasn't often that a dream could be so bad that she was forcibly torn awake with a gasp and a jerk. The first time she'd ever awoken with such fear clutching at her heart had been shortly after Naruto had left Konoha, when her stupid subconscious had pointed out that it wouldn't be all that farfetched if she never saw her friends again. Not alive anyway.

The second time it had happened had been the night before her second chunin exam. She'd been traumatized enough by the first exam that she'd been positively dreading going through it again. She'd dreamt that her teammates had abandoned her in the Forest of Absolute Certain Doom as trees resembling snakes attempted to crush her to death and that Kakashi and Tsunade just looked on, clicking their tongues and shaking their heads in disappointment.

The exam had been the perfect anti-climax to this vision of horror, though. Chouji and Ino weren't half bad teammates when they weren't being neurotic, and no strange, pale snake-men dropped by to chew on anyone's neck. Nor did any of the other hidden villages attempt a coup d'état to overthrow Konoha or murder the Hokage.

So, all in all, quite the success.

And she needn't have worried about Kakashi criticizing her performance. He hadn't even shown up. At the time she'd resented this, hurt that he wasn't interested in her progress because she wasn't male or insane enough.

However, this resentment had faded when she discovered he'd been off on another S-class mission. And this was confirmed when he appeared a few days after her graduation in the hospital with a broken arm and a lacerated shoulder. He'd asked for a specific medic: a chunin by the name of Haruno Sakura.

No one had told him she'd passed. He'd just _assumed_.

That was almost better than him being at her inauguration.

(Although they both agreed he would have been in serious trouble if it had turned out she _hadn't_ passed.)

The third real nightmare she'd endured had been shortly after her fight with Sasori. She'd come close to dying before, but never that close. She'd never been stabbed so deeply before. Never felt the cold and numbing grip of death creep over her before. But what had scared her most about the whole near-death experience had been that _she hadn't cared_. As she lay there dying, she couldn't even summon the energy to be scared or angry. She could only feel acceptance… because that was the easiest way.

Sakura never wanted to feel like that again, and a rather real and vivid nightmare had been enough to cement that belief. She'd woken up crying and sweating and pleading with an empty room not to take her life while she was too weak to care. Not now, not ever.

But the fourth time Sakura sprang awake from the dream world with a jerk and a choke, she'd found herself staring unseeingly at a wall of damp logs. The images of her nightmare were still burning fresh in her mind. Sensations of greedy hands groping at her body, abusing it, taking more than she could give – willingly or not, still bombarded her. She couldn't tell if the man above her was Kakashi or Matsura… but the moment she'd heard the sound of Raikiri split the air, she'd jerked awake with a thundering heart and bird song still ringing in her ear.

It took her a moment to actually realize this was simply the dawn chorus. The forest was _deafening_ this early in the morning. Stupid birds….

Forcing herself to relax and take deep breaths, Sakura pressed back against the rocks, hugging herself with her arms. The sun hadn't quite risen yet, but there was just enough light filtering through the gaps in the tree trunks to let her see that Kakashi was no longer stretched across the ground. She turned her head and saw that he was sitting beside her, looking as hunched up, stiff and unhappy as she felt. The warmth of his upper arm pressed against her own.

Sakura couldn't think of anything to say. Not even 'good morning' sounded appropriate in her head at that moment.

"Now…" Kakashi began, his voice breaking slightly as it seemed to be the first time he'd used it that day. "That was either a myoclonic jerk or a rather nasty nightmare."

"Who's a myopic jerk?" Sakura croaked, rubbing her eyes. She knew she wasn't exactly a vision of beauty in the morning, so she did her best to avert her face from Kakashi. "Oh crap, did I fall asleep on my watch?"

"You sure did," Kakashi grunted and stretched, making Sakura duck out of the way of his arm. "I didn't have the heart to wake you though."

This from the man who had routinely brought along a saucepan and spoon on Team Seven's old D-class missions for the sole purpose of getting them up in the morning. Consideration wasn't a frequently used word in Kakashi's vocabulary, but perhaps he felt Sakura's lack of sleep would be more problematic than anything else.

Gosh… she couldn't seem to stop showing herself up on this mission, could she? Groaning, Sakura crawled out from under the log shelter and out into the open where the morning promptly hit her full in the face. The air smelt so earthy and humid that she couldn't help but cough. Her lungs were town lungs, born and bred, but she couldn't deny it smelt good. It was a change from waking up to the stench of chemical soap suds from the launderette opposite her apartment.

She was stumbling towards the river edge when Kakashi emerged from the shelter behind her, plucking long pink hairs from the damp blade of his parrying kunai. After splashing a little cold water over her face and running some more over her hair to smooth it out, she turned to see him giving her an incredulous look. "What?" she grunted.

"Couldn't you have waited till we got home?" he asked mildly, indicating her hair cut.

Sakura shook her head. "It was getting in the way." _And it kept reminding me of the mission…_

Kakashi shrugged. "Fair enough," he tucked the kunai back into its holster. "It suits you shorter anyway. It makes you look more sophisticated."

Sakura wasn't sure that was a compliment. She'd been _aiming _for cute and spunky. "Sophisticated as in kimono-wearing noble, or sophisticated as in…?"

He stared at her, visible eye hooded with maddening impassivity as his thumb stilled against the metal ring on the end of his sheathed kunai. "You look like a woman."

She turned away abruptly and began splashing water back over her face in an effort to kill her blush. She was beginning to realize that she'd blushed more times in the last twenty four hours than she had in two years – and the cause of most of them was standing behind her, yawning and popping his neck quite loudly. What did you say to comments like that anyway? Thanks, and you look like a man?

It wasn't like he was flirting, because she knew for a fact that Hatake Kakashi was incapable of such an act. In all the years that she'd known him, she'd never heard him banter playfully with a woman or give suggestive comments. Of course, in all the years she'd known him, he hadn't actually shown much interest in the fairer sex at all.

Naruto and Sasuke had picked up on this quite quickly and had a running bet to see which way the copy ninja swung. Naruto was adamant that he was straight. Sasuke was too cynical to accept that and was sure he was gay. (To which Naruto had responded 'Why? Because he's so much like you?' which had been met with a resounding punch.)

Even though Sakura had never been involved in their little bet (in which teeth seemed to be the main betting fodder), she'd privately assumed he was just asexual. That perhaps the only things that interested him were books. Naked women didn't turn him on. Naked men didn't turn him on. But heck, give him an Icha Icha book and he'd be struggling to tear his eyes away.

So unless you had erotic literature printed across your skin, Hatake Kakashi wasn't going to show much interest in you. Sure he'd kissed Sakura for the sake of a mission, but he probably wasn't all that into it. Even now with that strange comment, it was more likely a passive observation than an actual compliment. He might just as easily turn to a toadstool and say "You look a bit poisonous."

And what's more, the toadstool wouldn't blush over it and then spend the rest of the day agonizing over the meaning behind those simple words while the man in question went on about his business. Although Sakura wouldn't blame it if it did. Kakashi had that effect on people. He had that effect on _her_.

She was just dipping her aching feet into the water for a well-deserved cooling when Kakashi knelt down beside her. She glanced over in time to see him shed his gloves and mask to start scooping up water in his hands to splash his face and take a drink. That was the fourth time he'd taken off his mask during this mission.

Either Kakashi was getting awfully complacent with her presence or…

"Are you still on the drugs?" she asked bluntly.

Kakashi snapped his mask back into place as he turned to her, one eye closed and the other hooded and slightly perturbed. "Mm?"

Well, whatever the reason, Sakura decided not to push the matter. Bringing his attention to it would probably only make him more cagey, and honestly, it wasn't like she was _complaining_. Shaking her head, she resumed paddling her feet against the rippling waters, her thoughts already drifting back to last night's events.

Kakashi sighed and sat back; legs crossed and weight braced behind him on his hands. One wrist gave such a audible click that Sakura couldn't help but snigger. "Your joints sound like they need some oiling, sensei," she teased.

"You're just jealous because you can't click as loudly as me," he replied lightly.

Sakura sat up and began rotating her wrist until it made a rather impressive snapping sound. She looked triumphantly at Kakashi who remained unmoved. In response, he shrugged his shoulder, emitting both a pop _and _a crunch.

Not to be outdone, Sakura lifted her feet from the water and flexed her toes till they all gave simultaneous little cracks, like the sound of a bunch of twigs snapping in unison. Kakashi countered with a stretch that had at least five joints along both arms snapping aloud.

They carried on popping and clicking at each other until he eventually ran out of joints to crack, though Sakura still had two knuckles left to go. "Alright," he sighed, holding up a hand. "You win."

She grinned at him. "No wonder Gai-sensei keeps pulling ahead in your rivalry. You give up too easily," she told him.

"Knowing when to quit is the mark of a smarter player," Kakashi returned. "It isn't always worth the fight."

Sakura's smile died a little. She searched Kakashi's masked, indecipherable face that was still partly turned away from her for a sign of a hidden meaning. Was he implying that she should have given up yesterday? Before things had gotten too far? Or was this just another innocently egotistical comment delivered with his usual nonchalance?

She knew the answer when he pulled a kunai from his hip pouch and passed it to her. He performed a one handed counter-seal almost lazily, and the cool metal in Sakura's hands suddenly ballooned into the form of a delicate blue and gold vase.

Sakura stared at the engraved pattern around the cockerel, tracing the lines with her fingertips.

Kakashi stood with grunt. "I hope that thing was worth it," he said offhandedly as he slouched off in the direction of the shelter she'd constructed and began taking it apart. Sakura watched him apprehensively before turning her attention back on the vase.

This artifact was probably worth a fortune. She could run away, sell it, and retire happily at the age of seventeen, never having to worry about money ever again. Not even her children or grandchildren would have to worry about money if this vase was hers.

But at the end of the day, it was just a lump of clay. Was it really worth what she had lost?

Damn Kakashi…

Sakura got to her feet carefully, cradling the vase against her chest as she watched Kakashi knocking the tree trunks into a horizontal pile. It wasn't entirely necessary, but at least if anyone came upon this small clearing it wouldn't be immediately obvious that there had been a shelter there. Every little helped, and all that. Sakura watched Kakashi bend down to collect the eyepatch she'd stripped him of last night.

"It's not what you think," she said, almost too quietly to expect him to hear her.

He turned halfheartedly, tugging the leather straps of his patch tight behind his head. "Mm?" he inquired.

Sakura swallowed hard. "Matsura didn't…" Her voice cracked and she tried again. "He didn't take it… I'm still a virgin."

Kakashi blinked slowly as his hands fell to his sides. He seemed to ponder this admission for a moment or two before walking towards her and bringing his hand down on her mop of unruly damp hair. "I don't think it really matters one way or another," he said evenly, bending down slightly to her level. "He may not have taken your virginity, but he still took your innocence. He still made you cry."

Sakura stepped back sharply, forcing his hand to slip from her head. She gave him a fierce glare. "Since when did I cry?"

Kakashi straightened, hands in pockets. "Last night. In your sleep."

Unable to form a suitable comeback to that, Sakura glared at the ground.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of," Kakashi told her gently.

This kind of conversation did nothing for the stoic and confident image she was trying to give. Instead, his softly spoken words just made her want to cry all over again. The last thing Sakura wanted to do was cry in front of this man… but clearly she'd already done that last night. "Nothing to be ashamed of…" she echoed. "That's easy for you to say. I bet you've never cried once in your life."

"You'd think…" Kakashi responded loftily, looking up at the sky. "But actually I cried a lot when I was your age. Every time I stubbed a toe… whenever I nicked myself shaving… you know, that kind of thing."

Sakura gave him an incredibly perturbed look.

"Well, I was drunk most of the time," Kakashi amended.

Ah… so maybe he hadn't been joking?

"Don't worry about it, Sakura," he said, moving past her. She caught the smell of earth and tree sap in his wake and realized she smelled exactly the same. When he reached the river bank, he looked back at her expectantly. "You coming?"

He stepped out onto the river's moving surface and set off, following its current. Sakura stepped out after him and jogged to catch up. "Did I really cry in my sleep?" she asked, grimacing in dread. She'd never done that before – or at least not to her knowledge.

"It's what woke me up," he told her cheerfully. "That, and the fact you were calling my name. Under a different context that would have been flattering, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't that kind of dream."

Sakura almost sunk into the river from shock. She couldn't believe he'd just said that. She couldn't believe she _talked_ in her sleep. Normally the sound of her own voice woke her up instantly… but obviously nightmares had a tighter grip on her than the usual dream. "You obviously didn't bother waking me up then," she pointed out.

"Every time I tried, you just punched me," Kakashi said a little mournfully. "I'm completely black and blue under this shirt, you know."

It was best if Sakura tried not to imagine what was under that shirt. It only made her feel warm and uncomfortable. "Sorry," she mumbled.

He shrugged. "If anyone asks, Matsura did it."

"Don't want anyone to know you got beaten up by an unconscious little girl, huh?" she guessed flatly.

"I'm not sure my dwindling reputation could take that kind of hit," he admitted.

Sakura snorted. "_You _certainly can't."

Kakashi gave her a irked look. "Do you remember a time when-"

"I used to look up to you and respect you?" she supplied. "Sure I do. It was during the ten minutes between hearing of your name and then seeing you fall for Naruto's stupid eraser-in-the-door prank."

He looked crestfallen. "I lost you guys that quickly, huh?" he sighed.

"Well…" Sakura cocked her head. "We thought you were kind of cool again after we met Gai-sensei. But you know, _anyone_ looks cool next to that guy…"

Kakashi wasn't cheered by this at all.

Sakura pursed her lips and waited for him to say something. When he didn't, she hugged the vase closer and said, "I'm sorry for beating you up last night. And drugging you. And getting you covered in cement dust. And making you sleep on the forest floor with a headache."

There was a long pause of deliberation before he answered. "I'm sorry for making you cry."

She blanched. "Hey, _you _weren't responsible for-"

He gave her an indefinable look. The kind that said _yeah, right. _"You talked in your sleep, Sakura." He turned back to their winding river path. "If there's one thing more heartbreaking than seeing someone you care about cry, it's being the cause of it."

It was a nice sentiment, but Sakura's mind was tripping over one particular word.

_Care?_

"You care about me?" she whispered, keeping her eyes firmly fixed ahead of them, much like Kakashi was doing.

"I care about all of you, Sakura. Naruto and Sasuke too. You guys are like family to me," he sighed. "And you know that if there was anything bothering you… seriously… don't hesitate to tell me to back off and leave you the hell alone. I don't know about you, but I hate it when people see my sad face and won't stop asking me what's wrong or if I want to talk about it."

Kakashi had a sad face?

"What if I do want to talk about?" she asked apprehensively.

He skewed her a sideways glance. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asked quietly.

Sakura sucked on her bottom lip. "No… I mean… I don't know. I think it's too soon." And in all honesty, she didn't think she had the courage to talk to Kakashi about those kinds of things. But if not him, then who else?

She wouldn't be able to tell her mother. Even if she was allowed to talk about the mission with her, Sakura wouldn't. It would only make her mother worry, and would ultimately end up with Sakura being forced at knife point by her father to hand in her resignation as a ninja. The only reason her parents had let her become a kunoichi in the first place was because she'd promised them these kinds of missions were archaic and just didn't happen anymore.

She'd have to tell Tsunade. The report would require it. And although Sakura admired the woman greatly and trusted her implicitly, it was hard to be open with her about such things. She could spill her guts to Tsunade, and the most sympathetic response she would get would be an arched eyebrow and a soft 'hm'. If she was feeling generous. She was not a woman to be confided in.

And who else was there? Naruto? He'd feel awkward about being told such things. He'd try to offer some kind of condolence and sympathy, but ultimately he wouldn't understand and it would only upset him. Telling Sasuke was out of the question. Not unless she wanted to get stared at incredulously and told to stop moping around over nothing.

But it wasn't as if Sakura wanted to be sympathized with. She just wanted to tell someone who would understand… someone who would neither make a big deal nor tell her to suck it up. And frankly, the only person who came even remotely close to those requirements was walking right next to her.

Maybe she could keep it to herself? Not all burdens had to be shared. Maybe in time she would be able to walk five steps without having a nasty flashback to being violated by the most repulsive human being ever. It felt hard now because the wound in her chest was still relatively fresh. Maybe if she waited a few more nights…?

Sakura gazed dully at the water rushing on ahead of them. "Is it supposed to feel this bad…?" she asked him quietly.

Kakashi knew what she meant instantly. "I'd be surprised if it didn't."

That was all they said on the matter. They didn't talk much beyond that, aside from the occasional pause in their walk to try and calibrate their exact location. They were in agreement that the river was gradually curving east, towards the morning sun. Toward Konoha. And they would have kept following its winding route if a sudden burst of distant chakra hadn't made them both stop in their tracks.

"Did you feel that?" Sakura asked, even though she knew perfectly well that he had.

Kakashi rubbed the back of his head, looking off into the trees behind them. "Mm…" he hummed unhappily. "I think we're being followed."

No need to ask who by.

"Come on," Kakashi took off into the trees. "We need to get out of the open."

Sakura took off after him, silently cursing her lack of footwear. It was difficult keeping up with Kakashi at the best of times, but it was a tad harder when she was weighed down by a priceless pot and kept running across sharp rocks, prickly plants and the occasional squishy invertebrate. When the forest became thicker and the trees larger and broader, she gladly followed Kakashi up into their branches and away from the ground where their tracks would be easily detected.

"Want me to hold the vase?" he called over his shoulder as he dropped down onto the lower branch of another tree.

"I'm fine," she said tightly and followed him across the gap.

"We'll keep south," Kakashi explained. "If by chance they can still track us, we won't lead them to Konoha."

"Right," Sakura nodded.

The trees were beginning to thin out again, and the distance between one limb and the next grew larger. It was when Sakura was taking a leap across one of these large gaps that she realized Kakashi had stopped.

Directly in the place she was about to land.

"Watch-!"

_**Bumf!**_

Sakura's foot hit the branch just as the rest of her hit Kakashi, colliding with his back so forcefully that the whole tree limb shook and started to waver up and down in a threatening manner. Kakashi remained unfazed and only blinked back at her in mild surprise as if he'd just been hit upside the head by a weak gust of wind. "Ok there, Sakura?"

Sakura, on the other hand, felt like she'd just smacked into a brick wall. "Why did you stop?" she gasped angrily, checking over the vase in her hands to make sure it was unharmed.

He held a finger to his masked lips and took her elbow as he guided them closer towards the thicker end of the branch. There he leaned against the sloping trunk and gestured for her to make herself equally inconspicuous. Even though she wasn't at all sure what he'd seen or heard, she obeyed, crouching down low on the branch with a hand braced against the trunk and her back bumping Kakashi's leg.

She waited silently, keeping completely still save for breathing and blinking.

It wasn't long before two voices could be made out against the background bird song and insect clicks. They gradually grew louder until a movement caught Sakura's eye and she tilted her head just enough to see two ninjas stroll into the clearing beneath them.

"-I'm telling you, I haven't seen any tracks for at least two miles now…"

"No, they definitely came this way. This is where the tracks from the river led."

"What's up ahead?"

"A few villages… and then the border to Suna."

"Do you think they're sand nins then?"

"Of course, what else would they be? You saw what that girl did, right? Took out three walls without breaking a sweat. Suna has a reputation for having monstrously strong muscle-maiden kunoichi. She's _obviously _one of them."

At the touch of Kakashi's hand on her shoulder, Sakura suddenly realized that she'd been starting to rise from her crouch with the intention of showing just what a muscle-maiden could do to their fragile little bones and squishy organs. His hand made her remember herself though, and she settled back down, silently fuming and glaring so hard at the two men that it was a wonder they didn't feel it or burst into flames.

The men continued on their way, completely unaware that they'd just passed straight by their quarry. Kakashi waited until they were safely out of earshot before unfolding his arms and pushing away from the tree trunk. "We'll double back," he said quietly. "Circle west a bit and find a village to rest overnight. I don't think we'll be getting back to Konoha today."

It was either something about the way he said it that annoyed her, or she was still riding her wave of anger that the two tracker-nins had ignited. Whatever it was, Sakura just snapped. "You're giving a lot of orders for someone who isn't mission leader," she groused.

Kakashi turned to her expectantly. "You want to do something else?"

She wanted to go home. Now. The last thing she wanted to do was delay that goal any further, and she certainly didn't fancy messing around in foreign villages. But this was quite a selfish little desire, and no leader could afford to be selfish. "No," she sighed dully. "It's a good plan. I'm just saying… I _am _leader here, you know. I'd appreciate it if you bossed me around a little less."

He shrugged. "Habit." Then he promptly turned and stepped onto the next branch over. "Come on," he ordered. "This way."

Sakura gave a frustrated growl. "You're doing it again!"

* * *

They found a village a few miles further west, and even though it was only half the size of Konoha, it seemed to be twice as busy. It also appeared to be market day, as the main road running through the center of the village was packed out with carts, stalls and pedestrians. People were walking around with baskets of food and somewhere a farmer seemed to have lost control of his pig herd, as Sakura spotted at least twenty pink piglets running around between the legs of traders and villagers. 

"We don't actually have any money, you know," Sakura pointed out to the man who would be leader.

"I know," he said, looking around with a finger braced against his chin. "We'll have to improvise."

"That sounds dishonest," she remarked darkly.

"It should," Kakashi replied lightly and turned to her. "Give me the vase for a minute."

She gave it to him without arguing, wondering what he planned to do with it. When he took out the large kunai from his hip, her mouth dropped open. "Wait – what do you think you're doing?"

He gave her a blank look. "The client has to pay for mission expenses, right?" he said.

With a deft flick of the blade, the diamond popped out of the cockerel's hand and landed in Kakashi's outstretched hand. Sakura ran her hands through her hair. "As mission leader, I have to say I'm really opposed to this…"

"Noted," was all he said before dragging her off in the direction of a jeweler's stall.

The man in the booth sat up as they approaching, smiling a broad grin that displayed a fair few missing teeth, although most of the remaining ones were embedded with diamonds. "Hello, sir," he said with simpering pleasantry. "How may I help you? Looking for a pretty necklace for your pretty daughter, perhaps?"

It took a moment for Sakura to realize the man was referring to _her_. She flushed with embarrassment – mostly for Kakashi's sake. Being mistaken to be old enough to be her father couldn't have been flattering (despite the fact he _was _old enough to be her father, and was only three years younger than her true biological dad). Then she felt a pique of worry. Having weird feelings for a man who was fourteen years older was a bit of a taboo, wasn't it?

Then she thought, _screw it_. Half the boys her age already crushed on the Hokage, and she was an _old woman!_ If that was acceptable, then surely Sakura could be forgiven for thinking her teacher had a cute smile?

Right?

And if Kakashi was insulted by the jeweler's assumption, he didn't show it. In fact, he even played along with it. "No, no," he said pleasantly, giving a dismissive wave. "She's pretty enough as it is."

Sakura was glad she was behind Kakashi so he didn't see her fifteen-millionth blush of the day.

"We're looking to trade with you," Kakashi began.

"Mm." The man looked distinctly less happy now.

"We have a diamond…"

"Mm?" The man perked up.

"A _blue _diamond."

"Oh ho-! Really?" The man leant forward eagerly. "Can I see it?"

"Of course," Kakashi obligingly put his hand out and dropped the precious stone into the jeweler's grubby palm. Out came an eye piece, and the man began pouring over the small stone, licking his lips he squinted through the lens. Sakura tapped her foot as she waited for his conclusion.

"I see, I see… I'm afraid it isn't genuine, my friend. I can only offer you a small price for it…"

He had to be lying. For the sake of Sakura's virginity, he had better be. She couldn't bear the idea that she'd risked all that for a cheap fake.

"A fake, huh?" Kakashi folded his arms. "Ah… well, I guess it can't be helped. What price can you give us anyway?"

Sakura watched disbelievingly as the man named an appallingly low price, to which Kakashi agreed, and happily began forking over a few money bills and coins. He was all smiles as he waved them goodbye, and as soon as they turned away from the stall, Sakura nudged Kakashi hard in the arm. "Did we just get ripped off?"

"I believe so," he didn't sound like he cared, he was too busy counting out their money.

"Why didn't you haggle a bit?" she asked.

"I didn't want to take _all _his money," Kakashi said, handing her half of his wad of cash, "because we'll be taking the diamond back in the morning."

Sakura's eyebrows shot up. "I don't know… between cheating our rich client and cheating a humble merchant, I'd rather cheat the one who can afford it."

"Sakura, any man who can afford to stick diamonds between his teeth for fun can afford to cater to a pair of weary travelers for a night," he said reasonably. "Anyway, you have enough money there to buy some shoes and new clothes. Get something to eat as well."

Sakura looked at the money in her hand. "Ok…" That _did _sound awfully tempting.

"I'm going to take a look around, and we'll meet back here in three hours."

Sakura mentally added another hour to that estimate, considering it _was _Kakashi she was meeting.

"Have fun!" Kakashi have her a playful salute, before stuffing his hands into his pockets and weaving his way off into the crowd.

Sakura sighed and looked at the money again.

First stop: shoe shop.

* * *

Shopping was a past time that always lightened Sakura's spirits, no matter what the occasion. Even now, as she trudged around the busy streets with the constant unease of the mission pressing at the back of her mind, she couldn't help but feel a little happier. 

There was something about the atmosphere – the choice and the selection. The money burning a hole in her pocket. It helped her concentrate on something other than Matsura and Kakashi. With three hours to kill, she took her time browsing around the clothing stores. She found a pair of black sandals that were not at all dissimilar to the ones she normally wore, and a pair of light brown pants that fastened tight at her knees. She would have preferred a skirt and a pair of shorts, but the only ones on offer were far too feminine and impractical for her work. She could live with pants until she got home… even if they were a little too similar to knickerbockers for comfort.

With a bit of searching she obtained a sleeveless green shirt and a matching headband to replace her hitai-ate. Again, she would have preferred something more red, but a muted green was better for camouflage, and besides, it went with her eyes. Her teammates could scoff, but as she always said, just because she was a ninja didn't mean she wasn't a woman. She'd be a disgrace to kunoichi everywhere if she couldn't color-coordinate her outfits.

After that, there was only enough money left over for a new pair of panties and a bra. Or a new pair of panties and a hot meal and bath.

Sakura weighed up her options. Bra… or hot meal and bath…?

Really, there wasn't much contest. Sakura hadn't eaten in over a day, and really… she'd passed the senbon test. She wasn't big enough to be in dire need of a bra.

Sakura munched on a stick of dango as she pattered through the streets, vase under one arm and shopping bags under the other, looking for a bathhouse. She asked for directions from a kindly old woman who pointed her towards the 'nicest' one in town. Sakura soon found her way there, and stopped in the doorway to check the prices.

Then she noticed something else.

_Unisex?_

Sakura narrowed her eyes skeptically. She'd heard of these kinds of bathhouses, but frankly she'd been under the impression that they'd gone out with the dinosaurs. She wasn't sure she liked the idea of bathing with men. Last week, perhaps, she wouldn't have minded. But today… the thought of being vulnerable to a man's ogling unnerved her somewhat.

She stood there for a long time, debating whether or not she was desperate enough for a bath to put up with that kind of inconvenience. She _was _beginning to smell a bit. And Kakashi's blood stains weren't cleaning _themselves_ up.

Just when she was beginning to think that, yes, maybe she could do this, someone rather familiar brushed past her on his way into the bathhouse.

"Yo."

Kakashi raised a hand as he passed, but didn't look up at her. He had his nose buried in that infernal Icha Icha Chaos book. Obviously he'd found a bookshop. Sakura stared at him as he went into the bathhouse ahead of her.

On second thought…

Sakura turned and started walking away. Maybe there was another bathhouse she could try elsewhere? Or a nice clean river? Or a water trough for the pigs…?

When she could barely handle Kakashi's bare face without turning into a puddle of drool, she had a feeling she'd just plain embarrass herself if she saw Kakashi's bare anything-else.

* * *

When three hours was up and Sakura had finally found herself a suitable women-only bathhouse to get washed up in, she went back to the designated meeting place to wait for Kakashi. 

An hour and a half after that, he arrived.

"Hey."

"You're _late_!" she snapped.

"I got lost…"

"In the bath?" She cocked an eyebrow at his still pruned fingers. He'd clearly only been out of the water for a few minutes.

"Anyway!" he said loudly, diverting the conversation indiscreetly. "I picked this up for you."

He unsnapped the button on his pouch and took something out. When he placed it in her hand, Sakura let out a gasp of delight.

A shuriken holster!

She nearly went teary-eyed, as she cradled the weapons reverently. "I love you!" she squeaked.

He gave an embarrassed laugh and ruffled her hair. "I love you too."

At the exact same moment their grins faded as they realized what they'd said and how odd it sounded. Kakashi's hand dropped rather limply from her head and he balled it against his mouth as he gave an awkward sort of cough.

Sakura immediately became a stuttering wreck. "W-Well, you know what I-I mean. A-As a friend and all that-"

"I know what you meant," he said quickly, giving her a reassuring smile.

Good.

And yet… still incredibly awkward…

Sakura cleared her throat and bent to strap the holster around her right thigh, letting her hair hang forward to hide blush number fifteen-million-and-one. When she straightened, Kakashi was already walking away with that wretched book in his hand. "It's going to get dark soon," he said absently. "We'd better find an inn before they get booked up."

"Right." Sakura had to jog to catch up.

The first inn they found was already out of vacancies, but at least the keeper was good enough to give them directions to a second more expensive inn further into the village. By the time they dragged their weary feet through the door of this inn, it was already getting dark. Fortunately though, there were still vacancies.

"We can't actually afford two rooms here," Kakashi said quietly as he counted and recounted the left over money.

Sakura folded her arms. "Told you you should have haggled a bit more…"

Resigned, Kakashi handed over the money. "We'll take one room with two singles," he said to the man behind the registration desk.

"No more singles," said the man. "Only doubles."

Kakashi drummed his fingers once against the sticky bar surface. "Is that double doubles?"

"Single doubles, sir."

"No double singles?"

"Just doubles, sir. Unless you want double single doubles."

All these soubles and dingles were beginning to confuse Sakura. It seemed you had to speak a whole new special language in order to make arrangements with innkeepers. "What's going on?" she asked Kakashi.

He sighed. "We can get a room, but the only vacancies he has have just one bed. A double bed."

"If you want sir," the innkeeper began, "we have a camp bed that we can put up for your daughter."

Ouch.

Twice in one day? That was a bit much…

Needless to say, Kakashi's reaction this time was less restrained. "She's not my daughter," he said shortly, clearly not amused. Both Sakura and the keeper took half a step away from him. Evidently he could be a _little_ sensitive about his age – probably because he wasn't actually that old. "But a camp bed would be lovely," he went on curtly. "Thank you."

The keeper nodded nervously and pointed up a staircase behind him. "We'll set it up in room three for you and your… companion, sir. Drinks are served in the bar until eleven."

Even though they were both quite tired, neither felt it was late enough to head to bed just yet, so they trundled off in search of the bar instead.

"Lemonade, please!" Sakura announced brightly to the bartender.

"Milk for me, thanks," Kakashi added.

They were both extraordinarily lame, Sakura decided, as two extraordinarily non-alcoholic drinks were set down before them. Everyone else in the bar was happily guzzling down all sorts of strong spirits and sake. But they _were _on a mission, and Sakura felt compelled to behave herself around her former superior. She sat the vase down on the bar next to her and chanced a glance at Kakashi.

"I didn't know you liked milk," she remarked.

"I don't," he said, rubbing his one visible eye with two fingers. "It's animal baby food in liquid form that's secreted by stinking, four-legged mammals that leak two liters of mucus and saliva a day."

Wow… the guy really didn't like milk. At all. "Then why did you order it?" she asked.

He sighed. "It helps me sleep."

Sakura grinned and was about to say, "Maybe you should just get drugged again?" when she realized that getting Kakashi drugged involved either some breast fondling or breast kissing, neither of which Sakura wanted to bring up in current company, even if she had washed the last traces of tranquilizer from her skin. Instead she just hunkered down and concentrated on sucking up half her glass of lemonade through her straw in one go as she tried to think of something else to say.

It was odd. She'd never really been in this situation before. Of course, she'd been alone with Kakashi plenty of times, but never for anything as mundane as having a drink. Normally it was all about training and missions and more training. When they did go out for a drink, there was always someone else accompanying them – usually Naruto, and sometimes Sasuke. And he was always the first to leave, having consumed his drink through his mask in time to spot the bill coming their way. And after Kakashi left, it would then be Sasuke, until it wound up just being Sakura and Naruto bickering alone throughout the evening over which was better – bio-detergent or non-bio.

This was virtually a first time experience. Sakura just wished she didn't feel so awkward all of a sudden. She'd never had trouble talking to him before, but now it was almost like talking to Sasuke – struggling to think of something to say that wouldn't make him look at her as if she was a dribbling idiot. Right then and there, Sakura realized it was a crush. Plain and simple. It was the only explanation for all the butterflies in her stomach and her inability to talk as freely as she normally did.

Then Sakura realized something else.

"You've taken off your mask," she said, blinking at him.

Kakashi glanced at her. "Is that a problem?"

"Well… this has to be the fifth time in two days," she said.

"You counted?" He sounded amused. He looked amused too; his dimple was showing.

"It's hard not to notice." Sakura shrugged, ogling that irresistible dip in his cheek. "But isn't it a bit odd? Nothing for five years and then – BAM – five times in a row."

Kakashi shrugged back at her. "Well, you've already seen my face. It seems silly to hide it from you now," he said simply. "Besides I can't drink milk through a mask… it leaves a stain."

"Kakashi-sensei…" Sakura rolled the ice around her glass. "Why do you wear a mask?" she asked, being deceptively casual about it.

"Oh… many reasons." He didn't elaborate.

"Like?" she pressed.

"When the flu season comes, I'm usually the only one left standing. I get my pick of all the best missions then," he said.

"That's a stupid reason."

"I said I had many reasons. I didn't say they were any good." He took a swig of his milk.

Sakura grinned as his glass came away, leaving behind a broad white moustache. "Kakashi-sensei obviously can't handle his drink," she remarked with a light laugh as she reached across to wipe the milk away with her thumb.

It struck her that she could be seriously invading the man's personal space by doing this, but it was too late by then. Her thumb was already brushing against his upper lip. Kakashi's face was unusually blank for lacking his mask, though he'd gone oddly still. Sakura started to pull back, when Kakashi caught her wrist between his fingers. He was staring at her thumb.

_Shit…_ Sakura bit her lip. _That was too weird, wasn't it? He's SO going to kill me…_

A pair of incredibly warm lips suddenly closed on the pad of her thumb, and Sakura nearly slipped straight off her stool. She gaped softly at her former teacher as he proceeded to – and really, there was no other word to describe it - _kiss_ the milk off her thumb.

The slide of a scorching tongue against her sensitive skin. The scrape of what could have been the elusive canine. Something shot straight up her arm and down into the pit of her stomach where it curled down lower, making her clench her thighs against the sudden tension between them. It was getting hard to breathe.

It was only brief, though it felt much longer to Sakura. One suck. Two sucks. Then he dropped her hand and wiped away the rest of his mustache away with the back of his glove. "Thanks," he said absentmindedly.

Contrasting to how hot his mouth had been, the moisture on her thumb now felt cold. Sakura could only stare at him, cheeks burning. Ever so slowly, Kakashi turned to meet her stare with one of his own; unreadable and as patient as ever. A group of men behind them were getting a little rowdy, and a glass smashed on the floor. Neither girl nor man broke eye contact. Nothing much existed or mattered beyond what was going on between them.

Sakura wished she knew what _was _going on between them.

For once, she didn't think Kakashi knew either.

Her thumb burned in her lap.

He hadn't quite gotten rid of all his moustache.

Suddenly Sakura took a sharp intake of breath. "I'm tired," she announced stiffly. "I'm going to bed."

Kakashi's eyebrows twitched up briefly in acknowledgement, and he went back to nursing his milk as if nothing had passed between them at all. "I'll try not to wake you when I come up," he said.

"Right." She slipped awkwardly onto her feet. "Thanks."

"Goodnight."

"Night." She began walking away very quickly.

"Sakura?"

She spun around, heart in throat. "Yes?"

Kakashi pointed at the vase.

"Oh… right. Thanks."

"Sure."

"…um… goodnight, sensei."

"… night, Sakura-chan."

Sakura frowned at the added suffix to her name. Normally he only called her that when he was teasing her, but in this context it sounded almost mocking. She turned and walked out of the room as calmly as she could. Her heart was pounding so loud it was a wonder only she could hear it. She stalked up the stairs the innkeeper had pointed out before and quickly located room number three.

It was small and cramped with one double bed taking up the majority of floor space. At the foot of the bed lay a futon with the quilts tucked back invitingly. But Sakura stomped straight past it and landed on the bigger bed with a hefty flop. Damn it, she deserved dibs on the comfy mattress for managing to live through _that_ without going into cardiac arrest.

It had to have been deliberate… people didn't make those kinds of intimate slips without _some _idea of what they were doing.

Honestly. What was that man thinking?

* * *

In the bar below, a room full of semi-sober patrons looked on mutely as a white-haired ninja proceeded to bash his head repeatedly against the bar. 

"What was I _thinking_?"

* * *

TBC

* * *


	8. In which Sakura has a nightmare

_

* * *

_

_Well here's a good man and a pretty young girl,_

_Trying to play together somehow…_

* * *

When Ayume, Sakura's cousin twice removed, came to visit, she more or less always stayed in Sakura's room since there was no place for her anywhere else. And since Ayume was older, she often went to bed later on. She always _promised _she'd be quiet when she came up, but she inevitably wound up crashing into at least three walls and a vacuum cleaner on way to bed. 

Granted, cousin Ayume was not a ninja.

But Kakashi was. And when he said he'd be quiet, he seriously meant it.

* * *

Sakura had been rolling around beneath the sheets for almost an hour after she'd turned the lights off, unable to get to sleep and idly wondering when Kakashi would come up to bed. It was deeply disturbing how uncannily she felt like her mother waiting up for her father on one of the nights he was off pub-crawling with his friends. But she was sure that the bar had closed by now. So where was he? 

She flopped onto her side and peered across the dark room to the unoccupied futon on the floor. She wondered if Kakashi would be upset that she'd pinched his bed. But even if he was, no force in heaven or hell could make her swap.

Sakura let out another aggrieved sigh as she rolled back to the cooler side of the bed. She couldn't seem to find a comfortable position anywhere on this remarkably comfy bed, even though it was a major upgrade from sleeping against a rock, à la last night. Whenever she closed her eyes, she thought of Kakashi. Whenever she _opened_ her eyes, she thought of Kakashi. Her mind played out the feel of his lips against her thumb, picking apart the memory and dissecting it for missed details before rewinding it and playing it over again.

Perhaps she was reading too far into things again. Perhaps he liked milk more than he cared to admit and honestly couldn't let her steal that tasty little morsel from him. Looking at it one way, Sakura couldn't really differentiate the way he'd sucked her thumb to the way she had sucked it when she'd got mitarashi sauce from her dango on it earlier. A quick, casual and inattentive action – nothing more, nothing less.

Looking at it another way, it was the most erotic thing anyone had ever done to her.

Admittedly, her total experience was appallingly limited in these areas, but she wasn't naïve enough to miss the way he'd looked at her, even if she wasn't sure what it meant. That look could have implied anything. It could have been a perfectly innocent '_What are you looking at?_' type of stare. Or it could have meant '_Yeah, I just gave your thumb oral sex. What of it?_'

Sakura had often wondered what kind of thoughts ran through the heads of men – it came from working alongside so many of them in a male-dominated profession. She imagined that the only things going on in Naruto's head would be something along the lines of _ramen-ramen-ramen-girls-ramen-ramen-Sasuke-ramen_.

Sasuke's head would be full of unhealthy dwellings on retribution, power, and hair-care products.

But if Sakura was allowed one glimpse into the thoughts of the infamous copy ninja, she wasn't at all sure what she would find there. At times the man seemed so listless that she could almost hear the wind whistling through the empty cavern that occupied the space between his ears. Then he'd do or say something so incredibly deep that she would realize that there were more layers to this man than she would ever be able to fathom.

Then he'd do something so inanely stupid that she'd have to reevaluate that stance yet again.

The man mystified her. He'd mystified her from the very first moment she'd met him, and not at all in a good way. Ino said that enigmatic men were always more interesting than the norm, but Sakura didn't find Kakashi enigmatic. Just annoying and confusing. Especially now, when she needed to understand him more than at any other point in her life.

Sakura flopped over again and shot the futon another distracted glance.

This time she nearly had heart failure when she spotted the Kakashi-shaped lump under the cover.

How long had he been there? How come Sakura hadn't sensed him coming in? Was he already asleep?

Man… he really meant it when he said he'd try not to wake her…

Sakura began to relax, safe in the knowledge that her teammate hadn't been set upon by Matsura's cronies while she wasn't there to keep an eye on him. She gave a great yawn and settled down with the sheets pulled up to her chin.

Really, she was probably just imagining things. It was best to just not talk about it and pretend it had never happened. Like the way he'd touched her in the forest. Or the way he'd kissed her in the gallery.

Just pretend it didn't happen.

* * *

Sakura didn't know when she drifted off, but it felt like someone way shaking her awake no sooner had she finally found solace for her crowded head. Kakashi was there above her with his mask pulled down to his chin. "Sakura, wake up," he was whispering. 

"What?" she responded muggily. "What is it?"

"I need you."

And then he was kissing her, deeply and hungrily. Sakura sighed in delight and wrapped her arms around his neck as he moved over her. No looking this gift horse in the mouth. She made no attempt to stop him from pulling off her clothes and settling between her legs. She didn't even complain when he didn't ask permission before entering her.

But she was beginning to take issue with the fact that he was starting to gain weight. His beard was getting in the way, scratching at her throat, and his hands were moving a little too roughly for comfort.

"No," she began, frowning. "No – get off. I don't like this."

But she felt half-asleep, and her attempts to push him away were pitifully weak and futile. There was no pain, but she knew it hurt. Her skin prickled with fear and mounting panic as she began to realize how helpless she was. "Get off! Please, get off! Please stop this!"

His weight was crushing her now, squeezing the air from her lungs and making her breathing labored. Vile grunts and groans echoed in her ears and her whole body jarred with each motion. Sakura felt like she was dying, and her choking sobs tore freely from her throat as she continued to beat uselessly against the enormous man bearing down on her.

"Stop it!" she begged. "Stop it, please! Kakashi! I want Kakashi-sensei! Please help me! Mom! Mommy!"

"Sakura."

"Get off me! _Please!_"

"Sakura."

The man above her was squeezing her shoulder tightly. Sakura tried to beat the arm away and the pressure left for a moment, only to return, pressing down hard on both her arms. he was shaking her.

"Sakura, you need to wake up."

It was Kakashi's voice. He was there. She'd called him and he had come. Sakura stopped fighting and began to relax.

The nightmare faded in spots. The hideous man above her melted, draining away through the holes of reality opening up in her confused vision. The only sensations that didn't fade were the steel-like grips on her arms. She became aware that she was still in bed, fully clothed, though the sheets were twisted awkwardly around her ankles and her pants were somewhere on the floor, leaving her incredibly exposed in her panties..

There was another dip in the mattress where Kakashi sat next to her hip. It was him who held her arms down so tightly. Sakura looked up at him apprehensively, painfully aware that her cheeks were cold and wet.

For a moment, she didn't think she could trust this man.

But Sakura was a genjutsu type. She knew the difference between reality and illusion, and this Kakashi was perfectly real. He would never hurt her.

The moment his grip slackened on her arms, Sakura threw herself upright and into his chest with a strangled sound. Her arms clamped around his neck with no intention of ever letting go, and she pressed her hot face into his shoulder. She knew she was depositing a lot of snot and tears onto his shirt, but right then she didn't care. She shook with silent sobs, clinging to him so tightly her arms ached.

Kakashi seemed to be at a loss. She felt his hand touch lightly, almost uncertainly against her back a few times before it finally settled there. He didn't whisper any comforting nonsense in her ear or try to cheer her up any other way. He simply let her take what she needed without interfering. He was waiting for her to sort it out herself.

"I-I'm sorry," she stammered against his shoulder, loathing herself completely. "I'm g-getting your shirt a-a-all messsy and gross."

"It doesn't matter," he said flatly.

Sakura trembled wretchedly, trying hard to contain all the turbulence within her. But she was out of control. It was like building a wall of twigs up in an attempt to hold back a tsunami. Her restraint was hanging by the barest of threads.

"Rule t-twenty-five," she whimpered. "Shinobi must keep emo-emotions to them-mm-selves."

"You're off duty for now."

"Rule four… a shinobi is nn-never off duty."

"Fuck the rules, Sakura," he said sharply.

His curse caught her off guard and she hiccupped against his shoulder in surprise.

He went on a bit more softly. "You can show me, Sakura," he said gently. "I won't think any less of you."

Those words were her undoing. The tidal wave smashed through the twigs and all the loose emotions within her bubbled over. She rocked against him and sobbed freely against his shoulder. Words fell from her lips in a tangled mess, falling over one another and running together as she began to tell him everything.

She told him how terrified she'd been with Matsura. How he'd made her massage his feet and take off his pants. How she'd had to stroke his dick and work up the courage to put it in her mouth. She'd told him about the way he'd squeezed her breasts too hard and pinched too tightly. And how he'd broken something when he'd thrust his fingers into her.

Not all of it was intelligible, even to Sakura's ears. She doubted Kakashi understood half of it. But he listened without comment and let it pour out of her until there was nothing left. He didn't sneer at her naivety the way Sasuke would. And he didn't vow vengeance and run off the way Naruto usually did.

He just understood.

"I'm sorry," she choked out, her voice having long since broken into nothing more than squeaks and rasps. "I tried. I _really_, really tried and I'm so sorry. I couldn't handle it. I never should have agreed to this!"

"You did well. You didn't fail at all."

Sakura sniffed loudly. "If I hadn't had the drug – if I'd washed it off – I would have been _raped_!"

"But you weren't," Kakashi said evenly, maintaining the level of calm she needed to anchor herself with. "It worked, and you're ok. You're completely safe now. It's all over."

"I know," she whimpered. "But it still hurts."

"That's just because of the nightmare," he said. "It'll get easier if you give it some time."

"Really?" God, she felt pathetic.

"It's just like a scar," he told her. "The pain will fade but the memory will remain. It's a bad experience, one you shouldn't have had to experience so soon, but it _will _fade."

Sakura pulled back, easing her arms from around his neck. She nodded in understanding and kept her face turned down. "Thank you, Kakashi-sensei."

His hand touched the top of her head, as if about to ruffle her hair the way he always did to cheer her up and/or tick her off. Only this time, his fingers smoothed over her disheveled locks, stroking her as his thumb tucked her bangs behind her ear. Sakura felt the heat of his palm through her hair and leaned into his touch unconsciously.

He promptly dropped it away. "You're alright," he said, like a doctor making a diagnosis. "But you should try and get some sleep. We're traveling hard tomorrow, and I want you ready and refreshed."

Sakura nodded glumly.

"Good girl," he murmured, patting one of her fisted hands as he started to rise.

But Sakura's fingers snagged in his sleeve. He paused, half-straightened, looking slowly from her fingers to her down-turned face. His question was silent, but clearly audible.

"Please stay," she said in a small voice.

Kakashi said nothing, but after a moment he sank back down to his seat on the edge of the mattress. "What's wrong?"

She twiddled the soft cloth of his sleeve between her fingers, staring hard at the bed. "I don't want you to leave me alone again."

"But I'll be just over there-"

"Can't you sleep here?" she asked, and immediately scooted to the other side of the bed to make room for him. "Please…? I feel like he's here. It's stupid, I know, but I'd feel better if you were next to me."

He was giving her a long hard look. "I would have thought the idea of another man in your bed would make you more uncomfortable," he drawled.

Sakura would have thought the same thing too, but she couldn't explain it. Kakashi's presence chased Matsura's away – just having him around alleviated the weight on her shoulders. When he'd kissed her in the gallery, he'd unknowingly put something right that had been broken. And now, she almost wished that she could kiss him again, just to feel good again. "I'd feel safer," she began honestly, "because it's you."

Kakashi's silent deliberation was near unbearable. She wondered if she'd overstepped one of those strong, invisible lines that defined their relationship. He was her superior on many, many levels, and she was his ward. But then he sighed loudly and shrugged. "Ah… well, who am I to turn down a comfy bed?" he said pleasantly. He pulled back the covers and slipped in next to her. He tugged a pillow into place beneath his head and folded his hands across his chest.

Sakura knew he wouldn't move from that position until it was time to get up. Kakashi slept like a corpse. It had been a source of great amusement to the younger members of Team Seven back in the old days, when they'd been able to manipulate his arms and legs into any position they wanted by the light of the dying campfire. In retrospect, he'd probably been awake for those occasions and was merely humoring his three protégés. (Or rather, just Sakura and Naruto. Sasuke rarely joined in, unless he was in the mood to supervise. 'Make him pick his nose,' was his favourite tip.)

But nevertheless, Kakashi was a motionless sleeper. He never tossed, nor turned, and Sakura was pretty confident that she wouldn't wake in the middle of the night to find herself being unwittingly spooned by her old teacher. (The last person to do this to her had been Naruto, taking advantage of closely situated sleeping bags. He'd woken up with a cracked rib for his trouble.)

Although… she really wouldn't have minded.

Not if it was Kakashi.

Shifting a little closer, Sakura was vaguely aware that this really was quite an indecent arrangement. She was in her panties, for crying out loud! But why worry now? She'd probably flashed Kakashi a considerable amount of thigh when she'd thrown her arms around him, not to mention a good glimpse of her underwear, which were embarrassingly pink and frilly. Had he seen? Did he like what he saw? Did he even care?

Sakura really had to stop thinking about these things…

Rolling over, she turned to face him, gazing at the silhouette of his masked profile against the moonlit window. She sighed deeply, just close enough to breathe in his warmth and personal smell.

"Kakashi-sensei…?"

"Mm?"

"Why do you smell like strawberries?"

"…it's easy to confuse soaps in a unisex bathhouse…"

"Likely excuse," she muttered.

Kakashi sighed. "Go to sleep, Sakura. It'll be a long boring day tomorrow."

She chewed her lip and buried her face against the mattress. "I'll just have another nightmare," she said miserably.

Kakashi said nothing for a long time, leading her to think he was going to leave it at that and just nod off. Then with a resigned noise in the back of his throat, he sat up, leant over to the nightstand and flipped on the light. Sakura blinked against the pain, shielding her eyes against the lamp as she squinted at Kakashi. "What?" she asked, when he rolled to face her.

"I can put you to sleep with the sharingan if you'd like."

Sakura eyed him skeptically. "But won't I still have-"

"No REM sleep with the sharingan," he said, cutting her off with a shake of the head. "I've used it on myself enough times to know."

Sakura's frown deepened. "Uh… how?"

"Mirror."

"Oh…" The idea of Kakashi knocking himself out by staring at his own reflection was… well, Sakura didn't know whether to laugh or seriously worry about him.

"It's perfectly safe," he told her, giving a carefree shrug. "It's just hypnotism."

"I know, I know…" Sakura trailed off, thinking hard. "Um… ok, I think."

"Alright, lie back."

Sakura settled back down against the pillow, feeling both apprehensive and a little excited. Only the exceedingly troublesome and powerful had the honor of being subjected to the sharingan. The most she'd ever been dealt by a sharingan was extraordinarily close scrutiny. Kakashi had sometimes watched her with it during sparring sessions years ago to keep track of her movements and criticize her techniques. The only one to ever use it against her in battle was Sasuke, but he had never made her do more than fall on her ass when he'd anticipated her moves and knocked her flying.

This would be the first time she'd be exposed to an actual technique. But it was good to start small.

Kakashi leaned over her, bracing his weight on one elbow near her shoulder. For a heart-pounding moment, she thought he was going to kiss her. But instead he flipped up his eyepatch up and blinked his sharingan at her as it adjusted to the light. It was spinning slowly clockwise, until it suddenly snapped into focus and began rapidly turning widdershins. Sakura drew in a shallow breath, transfixed by the whirling flecks of black against blood red. A feeling not dissimilar to being anaesthetized crept over her. It was like something was dragging her into a dark pool, and she was helpless to do nothing but feel herself sink. Her limbs went numb, her chest grew heavy and her head rolled back, unable to maintain eye contact as the darkness welled up and pulled her under completely.

She did dream, despite what Kakashi had said. Only it was more like reliving a gentle memory of stolen kisses between priceless paintings and sculptures.

She forgot it before she ever woke up.

* * *

Sakura had discovered quite early on in life that she disliked sleeping with other people. It stemmed from long, hot summer nights during cousin Ayume's visits in which she learnt how hard it was to sleep with a human tractor rumbling at the foot of her bed. 

She'd only just managed to tolerate the overnight missions with Team Seven by bringing a pair of earplugs whenever they were forced to camp together. Naruto's snores were incredible for such a small boy. Not only did he always manage to wriggle free of his sleeping bag to half sprawl across his teammates, but the force of his snores could sometimes shake the trees.

Sasuke's snoring was a little more reserved, but (she had to grudgingly accept) no less annoying. The boy practically purred in his sleep, rattling as he both exhaled and inhaled. Quite an accomplishment, really, and sort of impressive. But Sakura still found it very distracting. Some nights she'd lain awake listening to him and despairing, because she knew she'd never be able to marry and share a bed with a man who snored so persistently. Oh well, at least they had surgery for that sort of thing these days…

Kakashi was the only one who didn't make a sound when he slept, although this could have been because he was actually awake most nights. He was their guardian after all. If he fell asleep on watch and woke up to three slaughtered munchkins, he would be in for a serious whipping from the hokage. But even then, it seemed that Kakashi only ever snored when he was deeply under, and he was only ever deeply under when he was either sick or unconscious. The rest of the time he slept like a perfect gentlemen. Really, he was quite considerate of her sensitive disposition.

(Although all this was quite hypocritical, as Sakura herself snored like a bear with the flu on hot nights.)

So Sakura was pleasantly surprised when she woke up in the early hours of the morning and discovered she didn't have the urge to choke her roommate to death with a pillow for simply breathing. In fact it was quite nice actually, waking up beside another large, warm body who smelled faintly of dessert. He was turned on his side, back to her with one hand grasping the edge of his pillow and the other fisting the cover to his chest. His arms were bare since he'd removed the compound's uniform jacket and his own Anbu sleeves at some point during the night, leaving him in only a black nylon vest and mask. An old, slightly dulled tattoo stood out starkly on the pale skin of his upper arm. An Anbu insignia.

He didn't talk about those days much. But perhaps there wasn't a lot to tell; Anbu missions were infamous for being incredibly tedious and unpleasant. Most of them were classified too, so even if you did something cool, you could never take credit for it. This was part of the reason why Naruto claimed he had no intention whatsoever of joining up. When he saved the world and kicked bad guy ass, he wanted to be acknowledged for it.

Sasuke would probably join up… but he'd probably quit if ever Naruto fulfilled his dream of becoming hokage. He just wouldn't be able to stomach the idea of being ordered around by his 'dobe'. Although, he'd probably suit being in Anbu. They said that it always helped to be a little unhinged in that division… and judging by Sasuke's weekly psychoanalysis tests, he had plenty of that going on.

Sakura wondered why Kakashi had joined. To be honest, he seemed too lazy to keep up with the high-octane life of an Anbu operative. And he was way too recognizable to be incognito - he'd be the only Anbu in the line-up reading Icha Icha, for a start.

Perhaps that was why he'd quit?

But according to Yamato, he'd been quite the rising star in Anbu. He'd been going all the way to the top when he'd suddenly sold himself short and handed in his resignation. From then on he'd just started taking the regular missions and discreetly failing all the academy graduates sent his way in an attempt to be free from the responsibilities. "He didn't have the ambition," Yamato had said. "I think gaining that kind of power scared him. There was talk of him being signed to take over from the Sandaime at one point. You should have seen his face! He looked like he'd been stabbed in the gut."

There was something oddly refreshing about someone whose highest ambition in life was to find a quiet spot on a sunny afternoon in which to read a book. It made a change from power-mad teenagers. If it wasn't Naruto dying to be Hokage, it was Sasuke dying to _die _for a chance to kill his own kin. To know someone who liked to sit back and enjoy the simple pleasures in life put things in better perspective for Sakura.

Life was nothing without simple pleasures. Even Sasuke, for all his brooding and avenger talk, couldn't deny that sometimes just a nicely brewed cup of green tea could make his day. Or that Naruto's dirty jokes and pervy jutsu made him glad he hadn't killed his best friend after all.

Sakura already had many simply pleasures. But she had a feeling she'd just discovered a new one…

Sighing in warmth and contentment, she sidled a little closer to Kakashi's back till her forehead almost rested between his shoulder blades and her knee bumped his thigh. Had she been more awake, she probably would have been mortified at their proximity. But it still wasn't time to get up and Kakashi smelt virtually _edible_. And he was asleep… so what did it matter?

Sakura drifted off again, feeling impossibly at ease with the world and criminally comfy.

She was vaguely aware on some level that her hand came up at one point to rest lightly against Kakashi's waist… and that a few seconds later, Kakashi's hand picked it off just as gently and set it down on the mattress between them. Sakura was too sleepy to notice or care.

But when she finally roused properly, Kakashi was gone.

She sat up with a sniff and a yawn and stretched an arm towards the ceiling as she looked out the window. The sky was red with first light and the birds were beginning their overture. She could hear a few people out and about on the street below… but where was Kakashi?

A soft thump from the direction of the small adjoining bathroom clued her in. She turned towards the door and frowned in concern when she heard a muffled groan. "Kakashi-sensei?"

A rather long pause.

"…yeah?" His voice was badly muffled.

"Are you ok?"

"Yeah… just stubbed my toe…"

Sakura snorted. "You're not crying are you?"

"…I'm in floods," he responded dryly.

He emerged a few moments later, a towel draped over his head. Wet hair hung in dark gray spikes around his face. Sakura had to look away. Seriously, that vest had to be illegal.

Hatake Kakashi was a walking hazard to the opposite sex.

Not for the first time, she was kind of glad that he covered himself up so conservatively. It wouldn't do to be constantly fighting their way through throngs of salivating hormonal women during missions. Mostly because Sakura would have right in there with them.

Without speaking, Kakashi moved to sit on the edge of the bed as he proceeded to pull on the rest of his clothes (much to Sakura's relief). As he was adjusting the arm guards around his wrists, Sakura began chewing her lip.

"Kakashi-sensei…?"

"Mm?" He didn't look up from his adjustments.

"I'm sorry about last night," she said quietly. She didn't particularly want to bring it up, but she felt the need to apologize. "It wasn't very professional of me."

Kakashi slid her a hooded look with one eye shut and both eyebrows tilted in a mild form of 'whatever'. "I like to think we've known each other long enough to relax around one another," he said nonchalantly.

Sakura wasn't sure she could agree. Before the mission, he hadn't really spoken to her much at all. It had forced her to reevaluate their standing with one another. He'd been close… he'd been her _mentor_ for crying out loud, but with the distance he'd put between them, she'd had to wonder if they were just fated to be casual acquaintances. The kind of guy she would spot in the street and think 'Hey, I know him! He used to teach me stuff!'

She felt like she was still trying to relearn their dynamic; trying to recover the chemistry they'd once had, and trying to figure out which small nuances had changed in its absence.

_Something_ was different, she knew that much. She knew from the way his lips felt against her thumb that some small piece in their connection had shifted sideways. And from the way he'd cupped her bottom and squeezed her breast while he kissed her until she was a nonsensical wreck. From the way he'd touched her between her legs…

Something had changed all right.

And yet… despite all that had happened between them, they still spoke like nothing was different at all.

Kakashi stood and moved towards the door where he stomped into his sandals. "You can get dressed," he said distractedly as he picked up the blue and gold vase sitting on the nightstand. "I'm going to go see about getting that diamond back. Meet me at the entrance downstairs in fifteen minutes."

He probably meant half an hour.

His hand began reaching for the door. Sakura lurched forward slightly. "Sensei?"

Kakashi paused, looking back at her impassively. "Yeah?"

Dammit… what the hell had she been about to say? She searched her strangely blank mind for the question, but came up with nothing. "Um…" she hedged, realizing that perhaps she just wanted him to stay and talk to her and sort out this strange jumble of thoughts and feelings in her heart and head. "Take care, ok?"

He smiled suddenly, as if someone had just pinned the expression on his face. "See you in a bit."

Whoosh, slam, and he was gone.

Sakura pulled a tragic face at her own idiocy and flopped down into the badly rumpled covers to crush a small scream into her pillow.

No… not her pillow. Kakashi's.

She caught the faint lingering scent of flowery shampoo (he hadn't mixed up just his soap apparently) and the underlying musk that she knew so well. A deep scent of masculinity, that made her want to just lie there in the groove he'd left on the mattress and go back to sleep with her nose pressed to his pillow.

It struck Sakura after a few moments of basking in this delicious smell that it was one of the most bizarre and ridiculous things she'd ever done. Sitting up, she began to worry. Really, this crush was getting out of hand.

It probably wasn't healthy being interested in a man who was practically twice her age. A man who'd obtained jonin rank before she'd ever been born, who'd been in service for Konoha while her parents were still playing on seesaws and swings in the park.

But when he took off that mask and smiled in that lazy way that set off his good looks with the kind of accuracy that could normally only be obtained by practicing in from of a mirror for hours on end, Sakura could only too easily forget all these things. Forget that he was older, stronger and more experienced. That he'd been her teacher and superior. That he'd often set her grueling punishments whenever she'd overslept and managed to turn up to training even later than him. Forget that he'd killed her goldfish.

All she saw was a rather good-looking man smiling at her.

It would probably be best to just go back to the village and start avoiding him for another year. Perhaps pick up a boyfriend, discover sex and forgot about this short period in her life when she'd had the hots for her teacher. Maybe then her feelings would cool a little, and she'd go back to seeing him as plain old Kakashi-sensei – that guy who used to teach her stuff.

Rolling into the bathroom, Sakura began washing her face with the harsh complimentary inn soap. It would probably dry her skin out, but it was better than nothing. She combed fingers through her hair and fixed it with the green bandana as she watched her face critically in the mirror. The sharingan-induced sleep had gotten rid of the developing bags under her eyes. How useful. She'd have to see about getting Sasuke to give her one of his eyeballs when she got back.

When fifteen minutes was up, Sakura tightened the shuriken holster around her thigh and went downstairs to wait by the entrance. She knew she'd probably be sitting around for a while, but _someone_ had to be on time at least.

Which was why Sakura was a little surprised to find Kakashi waiting for her in the doorway of the inn. When he spotted her, he smiled. "Ready to go, Rin-chan?"

Right then, Sakura knew something was terribly wrong for three things.

Kakashi wouldn't call her Rin-chan, not even as a joke.

Kakashi was _never _on time.

And Kakashi wasn't holding the vase.

Taking a sharp breath, Sakura began backing further into the empty street, staring at him. Her hand went to the shuriken on her leg; her only weapons. "You're not-"

Her back collided with a hard body, and a cold blade curved around her neck, making her still. She hadn't sensed anyone there before… but she could tell from the sake-laden stench alone that it was Matsura.

Her stomach turned upside down.

"Right now you're probably wishing you'd killed me while you had the chance," a voice rumbled in her ear, making her shudder as disgust and nausea roiled through her. She swallowed against her fear and let her hand fall away from her holster. She was no match for this man.

"Where is he?" Her voice came out weak and trembling, enough so to feel a jab of self-loathing.

The Kakashi-look-alike promptly dropped his jutsu and became the man she'd seen outlined in the doorway of the gallery; Matsura's son, Jin. He looked away up the deserted street and Sakura followed his gaze curiously. Her eyes widened when she spotted the group of ninjas gathered in a line further away.

Sitting in front of them with his hands tied in his lap was her useless teammate. When their eyes met, he lifted his conjoined hands and gave her a little wave. "Yo," he called. The mask covering his throat had been sliced open and there was a considerable amount of blood soaked into his jacket. Sakura's heart leapt into her throat.

"Are you ok?" she shouted, ignoring Matsura's tightening blade.

"Great," Kakashi called back loftily. "But this is a little embarrassing…"

Even though his hands were tied, there was nothing to stop him breaking free and ramming a few kunai into the chests of the men behind him. But he was obviously holding back. With Matsura and Jin there, it probably wasn't wise to do anything drastic. One wrong move and it could all be game over.

Sakura found herself dragged through the street to where Kakashi sat. It was too early in the morning for many people to be around, but Sakura saw the odd terrified face peering out a window or hanging at a street corner. No one moved to help her though, and that was probably best. If Kakashi had been subdued so painfully easily, what chance did these ordinary civilians have?

She found herself forced to her knees beside her cool-headed teacher and ownership of the knife on her neck passed to one of the low-level goons behind them. That was a start at least. Matsura paced before them, slowly unsheathing a plain wakizashi from over his shoulder. His grace and steady hand surprised Sakura somewhat. Back in the compound it had been hard to believe such a buffoon could be considered elite. Now it was all too easy to see…

"So… _Umino Iruka,"_ Matsura pressed the square tip of the blade to Kakashi's shoulder. "Or should I say… _Hatake Kakashi!_"

Apparently being elite also meant you had to have a flair for melodrama. Kakashi looked up at the big man coolly. "Oh, no fooling you was there? Yes, you've got me. I am that man. I am… Hitake Takashi."

Sakura suppressed a smirk. "Hatake Kakashi," she corrected.

"Right," Kakashi nodded. "What she said. I am him. Make no mistake."

A small glimmer of doubt entered Matsura's face. People didn't readily give away their identities under interrogation unless it was the wrong information. He looked questioningly to his son standing a few meters away, but Jin only shrugged in typically unhelpful offspring fashion.

"If you don't believe me," Kakashi went on airily, "why don't you just take off my eyepatch? Have a look at my sharingan?"

But no one was going to fall for that. On the off-chance that he _was _the infamous copy ninja, no one wanted to go unveiling his greatest weapon.

"Not important…" Matsura said eventually, turning back to Kakashi. "Just tell me where the vase is," he moved his sword from Kakashi's shoulder to Sakura's forehead, "or I shove this blade through your little girl's brain."

Sakura nearly huffed indignantly. Wasn't _she_ the one who'd orchestrated this mission? Wasn't _she _mission leader? How come _Kakashi_ was the one being interrogated and she was just the 'little girl' bargaining chip? Really, how chauvinistic…

And what the hell had Kakashi done with the vase?

At Kakashi's reluctance to respond, Matsura smirked. "You think I won't do it? That I'll miss?" he scoffed, increasing the pressure behind the blade. Sakura winced in pain as she felt something warm dribble down over her nose. "I won't miss. It's a big enough target."

"Hey!" The only thing stopping Sakura from lunging for his throat at that point was the fact that she'd wind up skewering her head in the process. But Matsura was going to _pay _for that forehead crack!

"You care about this girl, don't you?" he directed to Kakashi. "What is she to you? Really? Is she your subordinate? Your lover? You sister? Maybe she's your daughter?"

Strike three.

"She's _not _my daughter."

The whole line of crony ninja behind them took half a step back. Sakura didn't blame them. Kakashi's patience was really beginning to wear thin on this sensitive subject. He could be quite scary sometimes.

"Not important," Matsura drawled, unimpressed. "Either way, if you don't tell me where my vase is, I'll kill her in ten seconds."

Sakura's stomach lurched again and fear prickled across her skin.

"Ten… nine…"

She twitched her gaze to look at Kakashi, but he was looking intensely at the dusty ground before him.

"Eight… seven… six…"

Duty before honor. A mission always comes before anything else, even the well-being of a teammate. It was a textbook scenario, and the guidelines were clear. Kakashi was well within his rights to let Sakura die for the sake of his silence. Sakura shouldn't blame him… only…

_My god, I'll haunt you to death if you let me die, you asshole-_

"Four… three… two-"

"If you kill her," Kakashi interrupted smoothly. "I won't tell you a thing. Spare her and you'll still have your bargaining chip."

Ahh… saved by logic. Sakura sighed in relief as the angular tip of the blade left her forehead, leaving a fresh trickle of blood in its wake.

"Yes," said Matsura, sneering at Kakashi nastily. "Death is a bit too final, isn't it? I'd hate to think how stubborn you'd get if she snuffed it. And you don't seem the type to buckle under your own duress, so there's no point torturing you."

"Glad you think so," Kakashi said pleasantly.

Matsura sneered again and slowly sheathed his blade. Sakura was about to release the air she'd been holding hostage in her lungs when Matsura's hand snapped out and grabbed her arm. She was yanked to her feet so fast she stumbled and nearly fell, but his tight grip refused to let her go. She glimpsed a crease form between Kakashi's eyebrows.

"Don't worry, I shan't kill her," Matsura assured him. "At least not yet – it would be a waste. Especially when there's so much liveliness to sample from her first."

Sakura didn't like the way he was looking at her – the same way he'd looked at her back in the compound. A dark hunger was glinting in his eyes as they raked over her form. Sakura wished she'd bought a big brown sack to wear instead of these practical, tight-fitting clothes. Sure she didn't have to worry about being weighed down or snagged on door handles, but it did nothing to protect her from the repulsive gaze of a pervert.

Then he was dragging her back towards the inn. Sakura shot Kakashi a startled, pleading look and saw the shock and anger rise visibly throughout his whole body. He was stiffening, wrists straining against his bonds. He looked ready to leap up at any moment.

Faster than the eye could follow, Jin was at his side, kunai digging into his throat. "Don't make me cut you again, Kakashi-san." But already there was blood welling liberally under the blade. He was cutting far too deeply, Sakura realized. Kakashi's face contorted with pain. She had to go back and heal him.

"Let me go!" she growled at Matsura as he dragged her into the shadow of the inn. "He's hurting him!"

Apparently Matsura had little tolerance for mouthy little kunoichi who drugged him at inopportune moments. No sooner had the words left her mouth than his fist came flying towards her face. Sakura had only the barest hint of a warning to throw herself back, but his grip on her arm halted her evasion and stars burst behind her eyes as something akin to a sledgehammer connected with her cheek.

Sakura slumped, mouth agape in a silent cry of pain.

"Women should know their place," he spat at her. "Kunoichi are an abomination. They shouldn't be. The world of battle is reserved only for those who have the strength to handle it-"

Sakura's coiled fist drew back and whipped forward to embed itself against his mouth, cutting off his misogynistic rant. She didn't hold back, measuring the perfect amount of chakra to enhance the punch to its fullest potential. It was worth it just to feel a tooth give beneath her knuckles. "What was that about strength?" she muttered round her own swollen cheek.

But Matsura's shock didn't last long, and it quickly turned to anger. "You little bitch – you need to be taught your place! Perhaps then your friend will be a little more talkative."

His hand snagged her hair and he resumed dragging her towards the inn. Sakura gasped and staggered after him or else suffer being scalped.

"Wait!"

That was Kakashi. Matsura stopped abruptly and looked back at him distastefully. Sakura looked at him through narrowed eyes, her breath coming in pants. She saw he was still held at bay by Jin's knife.

"The vase… I'll tell you where it is," Kakashi said flatly.

Sakura's eyes widened. "No – you idiot – don't be stupid-"

"You have to promise to leave her alone and let us go in peace," Kakashi interrupted, ignoring her. "Then I'll tell you where I hid it."

_You fool_, Sakura thought, closing her eyes in despair, but also in intense relief. She couldn't deny she was grateful to be saved. But to hand over the vase would render the whole mission effort so far useless. Having to put up with the sight of Matsura's dick would have been pointless.

Matsura turned, still gripping Sakura's hair too tightly. "Then speak. Tell us where it is."

Kakashi wasn't in a position to argue his demands. He'd have to just trust Matsura kept his word. "My pouch… there's a throwing kunai in my hip pouch."

Jin eased his blade away from Kakashi's throat and stooped to cautiously pop open said pouch. He withdrew the kunai in question and held it up curiously. "And?" he said.

Kakashi shrugged. "Perform a release seal and you'll see, Jin-san."

Jin did just that and quickly found himself holding the stolen vase, sans one blue diamond. But he didn't seem to notice this as he looked to his father. "We have it."

Matsura nodded, apparently pleased with this development. He looked to Kakashi with a benevolent smile, like one warrior admiring the integrity of another. Then he turned that same smile on his son and said, "Kill him."

* * *

TBC...

* * *


	9. In which things get a little out of hand

_

* * *

_

_I know that my face is only too familiar to your sleep,_

_I can see it in your eyes and I can tell by your body heat,_

_Why are you taking so long?_

_You need me to come and find you, honey?_

_Set your mind at rest, let your dreams run free_…

* * *

"Kill him." 

"What – _no!"_ Sakura tried to wrench herself free, tried to aim another punch at Matsura. Only this time he countered her surge of chakra with one of his own, nullifying her strength. It was like trying to thump a brick wall.

"You're coming with me," he hissed nastily, pushing his face close enough to hers to make her grimace. At least she was pleased to see he was missing a tooth.

Behind her, Jin had handed the vase to a subordinate and was advancing on Kakashi. "Sorry about this," he said, sounding quite apologetic.

"Oh no, it's perfectly understandable," Kakashi replied, just as sensitively.

Sakura tried to reach out a hand to him, even though she was being dragged away. "Kakashi!" She dug her heels in so hard, her sandals gauged through the dirt. "Kakashi-sensei, please! Do something!"

Save her – save himself – anything! Why was he just sitting there?

Matsura jerked her arm again, they were nearly at the doorway. Sakura turned to hiss another piece of her mind at him when a white and black blur made her hesitate. Kakashi was bearing down on them. Fast. She glimpsed a set and determined scowl and an arm whipping forward toward Matsura so fast it was merely a blur to her slow eyes. She heard Matsura make a sharp intake of breath, hand beginning to lift in order to block the sudden attack – but he was too slow.

Then Jin was between them. He'd moved faster and more silently than even Kakashi, and his hand snapped up to block Kakashi's with a sound thump. Blood spurted. Kakashi's kunai slid straight through Jin's palm, but the man didn't even flinch. He simply closed the fingers of his injured hand around Kakashi's fist and grabbed hold of the copy ninja's other shoulder.

Kakashi spun away, taking Jin with him like they were partaking in a bizarre waltz. Sakura's head reeled at the speed of the entire exchange. She glanced over her shoulder at where Kakashi had been sitting before, just in time to see the his tied up clone disappear with a whirl of dust and smoke. His hand bindings dropped to the floor with a clatter.

A decoy, just a decoy. But the Kakashi exchanging hard blows with Jin was perfectly real. The blood spraying from the newly appeared gash beneath his ribs was real.

"Take care of him, Jin," Matsura said harshly, his feathers ruffled by seeing his life flash briefly before his eyes. "And I'll take care of this one."

"N-No!" Sakura fought him again, applying as much strength as she could, though it seemed Matsura was pretty adept at chakra control too. He began pulling her through the doorway of the inn when Sakura reached out and took hold of the wooden rim. He tugged her, but Sakura refused to let go. The wood splintered and cracked beneath her fingers, sending sharp slices of wood through her skin. She didn't care. Letting go was not an option. She had to go help out Kakashi – he was badly outmatched!

"Kakashi-sensei!" she screamed, trying to tell him she would be with him in just a moment, when Matsura pressed a hand over her mouth. He released her arm to pry at her grip on the doorframe. Sakura screamed mutely and bit him savagely till blood filled her mouth. Matsura didn't care, and he barely even seemed to register her kicks against his legs. He was too busy working her hand loose.

Sakura closed her eyes and struggled with every scrap of strength and muscle in her body.

She heard a screech of bird song and an unintelligible cry. She opened her eyes to see half the street explode in a shower of dirt and pure white chakra. A cloud of dust washed over Sakura, invading her nose. She coughed and spluttered, hardly able to breathe.

"Sakura!"

She could see Kakashi's indistinct form running towards he through the storm of dust. She reached out her free hand to him, heart in her throat.

Then he was gone. Tackled into the dusty fog by a slightly singed Jin. She heard their grunts and the dull thuds of impacting fists. A volley of shuriken flew out of the dust, lodging with a series of _clunks_ against the outside wall of the inn. The fighting continued.

"You really are a stubborn bitch," Matsura complained, squeezing her hand so tightly she heard a pop.

Her face contorted and her control waned. The doorframe gave way. Matsura dragged her over the threshold and towards the staircase, barking at the innkeeper to get out of his way. The sounds of battle grew fainter. She thought she could hear Kakashi shouting her name again, but he wasn't coming. He couldn't.

She wouldn't stand now. Matsura had to drag her across the polished wooden floors. He didn't seem to particularly care when they arrived at the stairs and simply dragged her up, letting her hip hit each step with a jarring thud. Sakura tried desperately to claw at the grip on her arm, but he didn't even budge.

What chance did she have really? She was a medic-nin. She'd only been a jonin for a year, and her missions were still in the double digits. Sure she'd fought tough guys before, but usually she had some help from other tough guys.

Matsura was an S-class ninja. His title was 'The Legendary Pervert' (although Jiraiya was doing his utmost best to usurp that name). He was on par with the sannin, and possibly beyond them. Sakura had yet to really gain any kind of upper hand in the practice fights she'd had with Tsunade, no matter how well prepared. She doubted she could fend this man off…

Matsura threw a door open, and in a sickeningly familiar motion, Sakura found herself thrown against the pillows of a pristinely made bed. In a flash she was up, charging towards the window and freedom. Then Matsura's fingers were in the waistband of her pants, dragging her back onto the sheets. A frustrated dry sob tore from her throat. She was wrestled down against the mattress with an enormous weight pressing down on her hips. He was trying to get between her legs, but Sakura resolutely kept her knees pressed together and wriggled to evade his hands.

But all that wriggling was having a rather unwanted effect on Matsura. She felt evidence of as much pressing against her thigh and stilled in momentary shock and disgust. It was all he needed to push her knees apart and settle against her.

Sakura screamed in sheer revulsion, pushing and scratching blindly at his face. Matsura batted her hands away like they were just irritating flies buzzing around his head, then reached for her green shirt.

It was a shame, Sakura felt in retrospect. She'd quite liked the shirt, and it really had brought out her eyes. But in a second it was ripped and Sakura found herself wishing that she hadn't forgone buying a bra for the sake of a bath. She hadn't even thought to buy the usual bandages to bind herself with. Now she was bare all over again, and Matsura wasted no time in touching her just as roughly as the last time.

Only this time, Sakura was without the aid of drugs.

Taking his wrists in her hands, Sakura channeled the biggest surge of chakra she could manage and began to push. Matsura fought her, but Sakura was determined. It was almost preposterous – her young skinny arms steadily pushing away his brawny, heavily muscled ones. She gritted her teeth and concentrated, feeling him fighting back with his own chakra. Their connected arms wavered like an arm wrestling match about to take a turn.

He was going to overpower her, even at her full strength.

Sakura's mouth set in a grim line as she felt her arms beginning to buckle. Her biceps flexed painfully, knotting and tearing. It was now or never.

* * *

One of the first things Tsunade had ever taught Sakura was how to seal a wound. It involved a complicated process of interlacing the healthy cells of the skin back together, like straightening a torn feather between the fingers until it was smooth and unblemished again. It was difficult for most aspiring medics to grasp because it all worked on a level that was invisible to the naked eye. It was harder to control what you couldn't see. You might as well wear a blind fold whilst mending a wound, because it wouldn't make much difference one way or another. 

But once you had the ability to bring cells together, it was just as easy to tear them apart again. While it wasn't generally part of a medic-nin's syllabus to cause their patient bodily harm (unless they were making pervy nurse related jokes), it was just a side effect of the teachings. You didn't need to be a genius to reverse a technique and make someone bleed with only your chakra.

It supposedly came into use whenever a medic-nin was caught without his or her tools. Sometimes you had to make incisions in a patient to relieve them of poison, or remove diseased tissue, and if you'd forgot to bring your kunai or scalpel, you'd just have to use your bare hands instead.

Sakura knew perfectly well how to knit a wound together; she'd pretty much mastered it within her first month of training. She also knew how to break skin. How to slice muscles and crack bone. She knew how to twist nerves to cause explosive pain and how to lull them to sleep to create paralysis. It was difficult and it was against everything she'd been taught. But when you learnt how to mend the feather, it isn't too hard to figure out how to tear it again.

You just didn't go around admitting it.

Sakura had never done it practice though. It was all theory. It wasn't like anyone was lining up outside the hospital, volunteering to be cut up by medics for training purposes.

But it was now or never.

Matsura's chakra countered hers as she tried to push it into his flesh. He had good control, but ultimately hers was better. She channeled her strength away into the places where her skin touched his and let the chakra sink in. Beneath the fat lay muscle, bone and tendon. Sakura focused on this and gave a sharp jab with her chakra.

She cut the ligament of his left wrist.

Matsura gave a pained grunt as the strength suddenly seemed to leave his left arm. He stared at it, almost disbelievingly before turning a furious gaze on Sakura. "What did you _do_!" he seethed.

And even though Sakura had sliced straight through a major part of his control over his hand, he didn't seem all that weakened when he wrapped it around her throat and began squeezing. She choked and coughed, feeling heat rise to her face as her airways closed. She pushed limply against Matsura's chest, trying to gather her chakra again. She cracked a rib and tugged apart a muscle in his abdomen. But he didn't seem to notice or care. She could cut away at him all day, but he was S-class. These were nothing but flea bites to him, and she lacked the power to inflict anything deeper or more fatal.

Spots danced before her eyes, and her arms were getting heavy. He was choking the life out of her. Clearly he'd given up his whim of wanting to rape her… but perhaps he's pick that back up after she was dead and less liable to fight back. Her life didn't matter after all. He had his stupid vase back and there was no further need to bargain with Kakashi.

Odd memories flashed through Sakura's mind. The day she'd met Ino. The day she'd broken up with her. A random game in the park where she'd paused to look at the dark-haired Uchiha boy sitting alone at the swings. She wanted to cheer him up. Then she wanted to tear his guts out, break his legs and smash his face against the ground because he was _stupid_! Insane and stupid and trying to kill her, even though she only wanted to help him. But then he was back in the village and it was just like he'd never left… except now he had a tendency to wear provocative shirts…

It was almost embarrassing to think how much her life revolved around Sasuke. Enough to make her want to groan, shake her head and make a new resolution to start revolving it around more deserving people.

Kakashi's face popped inexplicably into her dying head.

_I thought I said deserving people…_

Sakura grasped the hands on her throat and futilely tried to twist the muscles with her chakra alone. But it wasn't good enough. Matsura just wasn't sensitive enough to care.

Sensitive…

"…_just beware that men are considerably more sensitive in these areas…"_

What did she have to loose? She was ten seconds away from death…

Sakura's hand groped its way down Matsura's sizable bulk to wedge itself between her hips and his. She was too far gone to care or recoil in disgust when her palm cupped the noticeable bulge pressing against her. She gave an experimental squeeze to test her strength and heard Matsura laugh cruelly. "Too late to suck up now, girl. I've had enough of you."

Sakura gathered her chakra and cut.

* * *

Some people said that the most terrifying sound known to man was the cry of a Biju. The people of Konoha agreed with this whole heartedly, recalling all too well the shrieks and screams of the nine-tailed fox that had attacked the village and killed their sexiest Hokage to date. Although Sakura had been too young to remember that time, she'd had enough encounters with the wilder side of Naruto to know that a Biju's wail was something quite terrible to behold. 

But it didn't hold a candle to the shrieks a man being forcibly castrated.

* * *

Kakashi was still fighting by the time Sakura staggered out of the inn and into the half-demolished street. She clutched her throat and coughed laboriously as she turned and took scope of the enormous damage. At least six of Matsura's underlings lay strewn amongst the rubble, either dead, unconscious, or wisely playing possum to stay out of the blazing battle flitting across the length of the street. 

Sakura saw Jin standing a hundred meters away outside a closed bookshop. He seemed to be looking around in mild confusion, probably for the absent Kakashi, though he didn't notice Sakura watching him. He looked a little roughed up. There was blood coming from his hairline and his shirt sleeve was a little burnt, but he appeared perfectly at ease. He looked up at the rooftops, searching for his adversary.

_If I know Kakashi-sensei, I'd be looking down right about now, _she thought tiredly.

No sooner had the thought crossed her mind than the ground suddenly gave way beneath Jin. The ninja staggered in surprise, but was quick enough to leap back to avoid the fist flying up to meet his chin. Sakura's stomach twisted almost painfully when Jin grabbed her teacher's arm and swung him in a full circle. Momentum was gathered and released. Kakashi went flying, tumbling across the ground like a rag doll.

Jin charged his chakra to the kunai in his hand and darted after him, raising his weapon to deliver the fatal blow while Kakashi was stunned.

Sakura's feet were moving before she even made the conscious decision. This was how it had happened last time too. Even though she was a smart girl and knew throwing herself into the path of a final attack was a sure way to die young and messily, it was better than just sitting back and watching someone she loved be slaughtered needlessly.

The split second she reached Kakashi's side, Jin was bearing down. She threw up her hand in desperation. There was no room for fear. "Wait – please!"

Fortunately Jin's control was better than Naruto and Sasuke's.

He came to a dead stop, blade mere inches from cutting straight through Sakura's chest. She saw the confusion and uncertainty cloud his rather stoic face as she blindly reached behind her to grab Kakashi's arm for comfort. She'd thought he was unconscious, but the faint mutter of something that sounded suspiciously like "…_really _embarrassing…" let her know he was still with her.

"What are…" Jin suddenly straightened, looking towards the inn. "Where's my father?"

Sakura swallowed hard. "You have to go help him. Now. If you don't get him to a medic within the next ten minutes, he'll die of blood loss."

Kakashi lifted his head. "Seriously?"

Jin looked at her sharply. "What did you do?"

"No, really, if you don't want him to die, go _now_," Sakura didn't quite feel like explaining to this man what kind of injury his father had – not unless she too wanted to die from extreme blood loss. He looked at her warily, probably calculating if he had the time to break her neck before he went and aided his father. But fortunately he decided he hadn't, and quickly took off towards the inn.

Sakura heaved a shaky sigh of intense relief and turned to Kakashi. "Sensei – you're all-"

Instantly she found herself tugged down in a strong one-armed embrace. "You're so cool, Sakura-chan," he teased as he coughed against her hair. "I think I actually saw my life flash before my eyes!"

"You and me both." Sakura clung to him tightly, breathing in the strong scent of sweat, blood and strawberries. Words couldn't describe how relieved she felt to be with him again. But really, there just wasn't enough time to cuddle and reminisce. Sakura pulled back, giving him a concerned once-over. "Are you ok?" she asked.

"Are _you_ ok? You're covered in blood," he shot back, looking down at her blood soaked pants and lingering on her torn shirt. It was held together at one shoulder only and the hanging material was giving him a broad view of one breast and a pert, pink nipple. Sakura blushed furiously when she realized this and quickly tugged the torn shirt up again to cover herself.

"I'm fine, it's not my blood," she said. Sakura would have told him more if they'd had the time. "Can you walk?"

"Since I was two." Kakashi took her proffered hand and pulled himself to his feet. He sagged a little, favoring his left leg and holding an arm across his stomach as if to hold it in. His eyepatch was missing, so he had to settle for closing his sharingan to conserve his energy. "What did you do anyway?" he asked, leaning heavily on her shoulder as they limped away. "Is he really going to die of blood loss in ten minutes?"

"No… more like in an hour or two," Sakura admitted. "He's a big guy. But I just wanted to get rid of Jin quicker."

"And what exactly did you do to Matsura?" Kakashi asked carefully.

"I'll tell you later," she said. "Let's just get out of here and – oh!"

She suddenly pulled away from Kakashi, leaving him swaying as she dashed towards one of Matsura's fallen underlings. He was still alive because when she attempted to tug the precious blue vase from his grip, he clung on stubbornly. A swift kick in his ribs convinced him to relinquish the pot more quickly.

Sakura trotted back to Kakashi's side, one hand clutching the vase and the other employed in keeping her torn shirt straight. "Did you get the diamond?" she asked when he draped his arm back around her shoulder.

"Yes, shortly before I was jumped by Captain Overkill and his band of merry men," Kakashi winced. "And then…"

He trailed off as an outrage voice floated over the broken street to them. "What the – who's responsible for this? Own up! This is coming straight out of your pocket!"

"Time to go," Kakashi said cheerfully.

* * *

They left Matsura to take responsibility for the destruction – most of which had been caused by Kakashi – and made a beeline for Konoha. "They know who I am now," Kakashi explained. "There's no point leaving a paper trail. Let's just go home and hide under the bed for a while." 

He was joking of course, but Sakura didn't think it was a bad idea. She didn't fancy Matsura coming after her and taking revenge for… _that_…

They didn't get too far from the village before they had to stop. Kakashi needed to be healed, and Sakura just wanted a rest. Her arms were aching from the strain and her shirt needed fixing. The moment they came upon a stream and enough dry ground, Sakura indicated Kakashi should sit down.

"I'm alright," he tried to convince her. "It looks worse than it is."

Sakura didn't believe that for a second. He'd taken on an S-class ninja, and while he'd done that before in the past and lived to tell, he was normally left over with some severe injuries. "I'm sure," she humored him bluntly. "Now take off your shirt."

"So assertive…" Kakashi sighed, before shrugging out of his jacket stiffly. "You can wear that by the way. I mean, your shirt…"

"Thanks," Sakura flushed gratefully as she pulled it on over her torn top. It was far too big, and the 'short' sleeves came all the way down to her elbows, but it covered the essentials and that was all that mattered. Kakashi continued to strip till he was down to his vest and mask – one and the same article of clothing it seemed. "I'm going to have to cut that off," she told him carefully. "You've got a burn on your back… and it's sort of melded the fabric to your skin."

"I thought something felt a bit sticky back there," he mused before handing her his kunai. "Here, have a party."

Kakashi was a good patient. He never made her feel bad by hissing in pain when she unavoidably tugged at his wound and kept still to let her work. She'd seen men with lesser injuries than him flailing around and screaming while generally hampering her every effort to help. In fact all Kakashi did was retrieve his Icha Icha book and start leafing through to where he'd left off while Sakura worked on his back, gradually removing his vest in bits and pieces.

"Your mask has to go too,"

"M'kay."

With one slice, the vest and mask fell into his lap. Kakashi set it aside and kept reading. Sakura almost had to wipe her mouth to check for drool. Certainly Kakashi had a rather lovely back (if you ignored the enormous, glossy and discolored burn in the middle of it), enough to remind Sakura that she'd never seen it before.

Ignoring the temptation to grope his smooth, broad shoulders, she set to work summoning chakra to her hands and holding them above the burn. She'd steadily improved over the years, and every time she did this she seemed to get better. Become faster. Three years ago a third-degree burn like this would take her most of the afternoon to fix without scarring. Nowadays it took five minutes.

Kakashi heaved a relaxed sigh as he turned page, clearly untroubled by the pain. Sakura frowned in concentration, watching the burn recede and diminish till it was nothing more than a brown stain on his skin. It was then that she realized how flawless his body was. Aside from a pale line the width of a hair along his shoulder, he was without scars; testament to the number of times he'd been healed by a proper medic no doubt.

It was enough to make her slightly neurotic about not leaving a single mark on him. She worked at the burn further until it was indistinguishable against his naturally pale olive complexion. She gave him a pat on the back to let him know she was done (and felt remarkably perverted for doing so) and moved around to his front. "Let me see your neck."

He had to put Icha Icha Chaos done for this as she knelt before his crossed legs and leant forward to tilt his chin up. Two deep wounds on either side of his throat were the source of a great deal of dull rusted blood staining his collar bones and chest. His body's natural blood clotting mechanism had stopped the bleeding, but even the motion of lifting his head opened the deeper wound on the right till it was weeping fresh drops. She winced for him, offering a sympathetic look as she let his chin drop and placed her hands over the wounds.

She could feel Kakashi's eyes on her face, but she stared resolutely at her working hands. For some reason she felt awkward being this close to him. She was painfully aware of how warm his skin was beneath his hands and how she could feel every rush of blood and beat of his heart. His breath glanced off her forearms, making the small sensitive hairs tingle with awareness. She chanced a look up at his face and noticed his gaze was now fixed on her shoulder.

The air between them felt charged, as if they were both waiting for something to happen, though Sakura was sure it was just a product of her own overactive imagination. She tried to concentrate on her healing, but it felt as if something more than just chakra was passing between them. And when Kakashi's hand suddenly lifted to cradle the juncture of her neck and shoulder, she almost jumped so badly her chakra flow was interrupted.

"You've got bruises," he said evenly, dragging a finger gently across her throat as if tracing something.

Sakura swallowed unsteadily, knowing Kakashi could probably feel it. "Probably from when Matsura tried to strangle me."

Now it was his turn to shoot her sympathetic look. "I'm sorry I couldn't get to you."

"You had your hands full," she said quickly, not wanting him to feel guilty. "Besides, I can't always be depending on other people to help me. Sometimes I have to go it alone, right? And I didn't do too badly."

Kakashi nodded considerately. "So how did you do it? How did you defeat an S-class criminal with only a few bruises and a torn shirt to show for it?"

Sakura felt herself going red. "Um…" It was a little embarrassing to say, and even though there was no one around to hear, she found herself leaning forward to cup her mouth over his ear. Once she'd whispered the truth to him, she resumed her work on his neck, noticing that both his eyes were opened quite wide. Ever so slightly his knees lifted as if trying to shield himself from her.

"Ouch…" he said.

"Ouch," she agreed.

"No, I mean… _ouch_." Kakashi gave her a concerned look. "He's going to want to kill you for that when he gets better. Maybe you should have killed him while you had him in that… vulnerable position?"

Sakura shifted uncomfortably. "I don't like the idea of killing helpless people. And besides… all I really care about is keeping him from hurting more girls. I think neutering him will do that wonderfully. And I'm not much in for the whole _revenge_ thing. I'd rather let him live and suffer through this than have him dead and ignorant of how much cooler I am than him."

"Hm. I'm learning there's quite a cold, calculating streak of cruelty in you, Sakura-chan," he said flatly, but if he hadn't removed the mask she wouldn't have seen the fond quirk at the corner of his lips. He scruffed her hair up and leant back. "You know, what you did… that's the kind of thing that normally gets people a legendary status."

"What, emasculating perverts?" she grinned.

"Yes. You could be Haruno Sakura, the Punisher of Perverts… the Deballer of Men," he said quite seriously. "'She'll make a eunuch out of you,' they'll say."

She laughed. "Sasuke-kun will never want to marry me now. I'll be doomed to be single for the rest of my life."

The small quirk of amusement left his lips and he looked away into the trees. Again, just a small hint of expression that she normally might have missed had he been wearing the mask. She had to wonder what she'd said.

"Ok, that's fine," Sakura announced, removing her hands from his beautifully healed throat. "Now recline. I want to see that gash on your stomach."

Obediently he flopped onto his back and brought his book up above his head, using it as a sun shield as he read. Sakura had a brief moment where she wasn't sure if she should move to sit beside him to heal his stomach or just crawl into his lap and sit on his pelvis.

Sanity quickly reasserted itself and she shuffled round to his side, privately mortified at her thoughts. Though to be honest, she was holding it together pretty well considering he had his shirt off and she was being exposed to fifty percent pure, unadulterated naked Kakashi. If she didn't have to heal his wounds, she wouldn't have stepped within twenty meters of the guy for fear of being magnetically drawn to him and suckered against his beautiful body like a limpet. She still had _some _dignity, so she had to keep her head on straight.

The wound on his stomach was deep but clean. It didn't take long to fix it up and have his abdomen back to normal. And 'normal' apparently meant a discreet six-pack.

Well… most ninjas had six packs, including the women. It would be more unusual if he had anything less, but even so, Sakura couldn't help giving the newly healed tissue a quick rub, as if she were stroking the belly of a cat. "All done," she told him with a beaming smile.

"Ah… I think my hip's a little cracked," he warned her lightly. "It's hard to walk on."

Sakura blinked at his lower half. "Which side?"

"Left."

"Whereabouts?"

Kakashi gingerly tapped his fingers a few inches below his hip bone, the very top of his thigh. "Happened when he threw me that last time. I landed pretty hard," he said.

"Does it hurt much?" Really she was just stalling for time. That place was far too close to Kakashi's crotch for comfort.

"Blazing agony," he sighed.

Ok, no more stalling. "Um… I can't do it through your clothes…"

"No problem." He began to unsnap his pants.

_Oh, boy…_

Fortunately he only pulled them down a few inches to expose the hem of a pair of extraordinarily boring black boxers. He must have noticed her lingering gaze because he said, "Yeah, I know. Sorry they're not more interesting, but I forgot to pack _my _pink and frilly ones."

Sakura's face blazed. "I'll just be glad you're wearing any at all," she muttered. "Do you have any idea how many times Naruto breaks his femur? It's _always_ on the days he's going commando."

"I like to think I'm above Naruto in overall cleanliness…"

"Clearly! You smell like strawberries after all."

"…you're not going to let me forget that are you?"

"You'd only do the same to me," she reminded.

"If I teased you for smelling nice, I'd be teasing you every day," Kakashi responded dryly.

Sakura shot him a slightly surprised look. Kakashi was looking away. "You think I smell nice?" she asked cautiously. It was something she was really quite conscious about. Just because she was a ninja didn't mean she could stop bathing and using deodorant.

But Kakashi just pointed at his hip. "Blazing agony," he repeated.

"Right… sorry." Awkwardly she lifted her hand and moved it towards his hip. "Don't mind me, I'm just…" Without elaborating much beyond that, she timidly slipped her hand beneath the waistband of his boxers and placed it gently over the indicated spot. She knew she found it when she felt him give an unintentional jerk of pain. "Oh, yeah… I can feel it swelling," she told him softly.

"What?" Kakashi's head jerked up, apparently quite disturbed for some reason.

She gave him a blank look. "Your hip," she clarified. "The tissue around the joint has swollen up in response to the fracture. Don't worry, it'll go down once it's mended."

Kakashi relaxed and lay back down, looking exhausted.

Bone fractures were a lot harder to heal that simple flesh wounds. Depending on how bad the break was, Sakura could be at it from anywhere between five minutes to five hours. She remembered having to heal one guy after he'd completely shattered his leg beyond all plausible repair. It had taken seven hours, but Sakura had done it.

Dealing with bone fractures was like dealing with jigsaw puzzles. Some people were better at it than others, but once you knew where all the pieces went, it was just a matter of threading them back together.

If anyone had come across them at that particular moment, it would have been nothing less than compromising. Kakashi was half naked, reading pornography and she had her hand down his underpants. Please draw your own conclusions, ladies and gentlemen.

But the break wasn't as bad as she expected. She soon had the pieces back together and was sealing them tightly with chakra. After another ten minutes, the bone was as good as new and the swelling was beginning to recede. Sakura didn't really need to keep her hand there… but for some reason it lingered a little longer than necessary. What did it matter? Kakashi couldn't tell.

Eventually she dragged her hand away and flexed it while she rubbed her tired wrist. "All better now," she said cheerfully. "You should be able to walk on it now."

Raising an eyebrow at her, Kakashi rolled himself upright and got to his feet. He gave a few experimental bounces and swayed his weight from one leg to the other. "Sakura, you are a genius," he told her.

"I know," she told him with a mock lack of modesty. She held her hands up to her own throat and removed the bruises there in a few seconds flat. Her own body was always easiest to heal.

Kakashi pulled on his shirt and moved to pull up his mask. His fingers found nothing and for a moment he resembled a boy who'd just found someone had eaten the last of his favorite cakes that he'd been saving for himself. Sakura felt sorry for him. "Here," she said, tearing off her already ruined green shirt from under his jacket. "It's a similar material and it should be long enough to tie behind your head.."

"I knew there was a reason you were my favorite," he said lightly as he tied the stretchy material at his nape. He looked distinctly more at ease for it, and Sakura could only hope to high heavens that it didn't smell too bad.

But he'd already said he'd liked her smell, right?

"Ok, let's go," Kakashi clapped his book closed and pocketed it. Together they took off at top speed for Konoha.

Really, the thought of being chased by an angry emasculated S-class criminal could be quite the powerful motivator.

* * *

Unfortunately, due to all the sneaky zigzagging around, they were now more than a day and a half away from Konoha, even when pressing as hard as they could. They stopped for a few minutes every now and the to catch their breath and take a drink whenever they came across a clean stream. But a distinct lack of food was making Sakura's stomach rumble unhappily, and she was running out of energy as it started to grow dark. Kakashi seemed well capable of continuing onwards, regardless of the dark and lack of sustenance, but Sakura had her limit. 

"Can we rest?" she panted as she came to a halt at the base of a reclining beach. Kakashi was a few branches above her, looking down curiously.

"You want to make camp for the night?" he asked.

Sakura nodded, massaging the air back into her lungs.

"Ok, we'll find a suitable place and perhaps see about finding some food and water as well."

Sakura sagged in relief. "I love you." It slipped out before she realized it, at which point she pressed her lips together quite firmly. Of course she hadn't really meant it like _that_, but last time she'd said it, things had gotten quite awkward.

But this time Kakashi didn't respond to it. "I can hear water just north west of here. Go have a drink and find a place to make camp. I'll go find something to eat."

Sakura gave a mocking salute, noticing that he was clearly taking charge again, and went to find the water he'd mentioned. He had far better hearing than her it seemed, as it was a few hundred meters deeper into the trees before she heard even the faintest trickle of a river.

Crouching down on its banks, she scooped water up in her hands and drank deeply, quenching her aching thirst. It did nothing for her hunger though, and she wondered if there were any fish to be had.

When Kakashi came upon the river, he found her walking back and forth across its surface, peering intently into the depths. "You won't find anything in there," he told her.

"Might…" she said contrarily, already salivating at the thought of gentle roasted fish over a campfire. She could already smell it.

"Unless you count leeches as a decent supplementary," he pointed out, before holding something out. "Here, I got you something."

It looked semi-circular and a little warped. It could only be one thing. "I am _not _eating that," she said shortly. "It tastes like _crap_."

"What's wrong with it?" As if he had to ask. He'd given her enough of these in the past to know her aversion to it. "It's edible and high in energy."

"It's mold that grows on trees!" she snapped.

"It's just a mushroom."

"I _hate _mushrooms."

"You also hate starving," he said.

"I'm working on solving that with fish." She went back to searching the waters.

"Give it up, Sakura," he told her flatly. "There aren't any fish in that stream. Now where are we sleeping?"

She pouted and pointed to a weeping willow sitting at a bend in the stream further up. Kakashi followed her finger and nodded. "Fine… that should keep the elements off us for a few hours. Come on and have your supper."

"God, you sound like my mother," she complained, kicking her way through the reeds to reach the solid ground again. After quick once-over to check for icky leeches, she stomped after him beneath the curtain of hanging willow leaves.

He reclined against the tree trunk almost instantly and held out the fungus to her which she snatched grumpily. "I'm actually pretty tired myself," he admitted as she began nibbling reluctantly. "Getting the shit kicked out of you can sure knock you off your feet."

"Luckily you had me to save you," she reminded him.

"You're going to gloat about that for a long time, aren't you?" he asked mournfully.

"Forever!" she declared happily. "Oh, come on, you're always the one who saves me. It's time I get credit for doing something neat."

Kakashi folded his arms across his chest, eye falling close. "Couldn't save you this time though," he said, rather morosely.

Sakura shrugged. "Doesn't matter. You can't help being late sometimes."

At this, Kakashi gave an unexpected bark of laughter. "Story of my life."

She grinned back at him. "You had a decent excuse this time though."

Wanting to change the subject to a less depressing matter, she looked down at the half eaten mushroom thing in her hand. "You hungry?" she asked.

"Nope," he replied.

His stomach rumbled its own response.

Sakura gave her old teacher an incredulous look. "I guess that was just thunder, huh?"

"Of course."

"Come on, Kakashi," she cajoled, crawling closer to him on her knees. "It's edible and high in energy!"

"I'm not hungry…"

"Bull. You just don't want to eat this," she retorted.

"It tastes like crap," he bemoaned.

"You're going to eat it whether you like it or not," she told him bluntly. "I'm not having you hold me back tomorrow by dying of hunger halfway home."

"I won't."

"I know, because you're going to be a good sensei and eat this like you're told."

"No."

Sakura bristled. "Kakashi-sensei…" she began warningly. "You're going to eat this."

He gave her a look that clearly said, '_Make me.'_

Well, alright then.

With little warning she leapt forward, tugged down his mask and drove the remaining half of the mushroom toward his mouth. His eyes widened in surprise, and he slipped backwards off the tree trunk in an effort to avoid the food morsel. Sakura followed him down, scrambling to sit on his stomach as she tried to shove the crumbling mushroom between his lips, but he had them pressed shut firmly, despite the poorly contained smile. His hands tried to push hers away, so she trapped one beneath her knee and pinned the other next to his head. Her strength was superior. He couldn't break free. When he tried to roll away, she clamped her thighs tighter around his middle.

"Open up," she commanded, breathless after their short tussle but mostly from excitement.

"Mm-mm," Kakashi hummed negatively. He too was breathing hard; she could feel every rise of his chest beneath her.

"If you don't, I'll… I'll tickle you," she threatened.

He opened his mouth long enough to tell her "I'm not ticklish," before sealing his lips again.

"Alright then…" She tried to think of something else. She didn't have enough hands free to tickle him anyway. "I'll… I'll steal Icha Icha and throw it in the river over there."

Kakashi gasped, shocked. "You wouldn't da-mmph!"

Sakura smashed the larger piece of the broken mushroom half into his mouth. She laughed as he spluttered and couldn't seem to decide between chewing and spitting it out. He wound up doing both. But Sakura still had a small piece left over. "You're not finished yet, Kakashi-sen-"

She suddenly found herself on her back as Kakashi promptly reversed their positions and rolled her over. Now it was her hands that were pinned, as Kakashi pried the last small chunk of mushroom from his fingers and held it up victoriously. Sakura's thighs were still clamped tightly around his middle, and even though he had her submitting, she knew that she could easily break lose.

But she didn't. Because that would have spoiled the fun of the game.

Instead she settled for straining helplessly against him with her basic strength which was no match for his. She felt a little vulnerable in this position, but it didn't trouble her. If anything it was quite exciting. The feel of him pressed over her triggered all sorts of instinctual reactions she'd never known even existed before. It made a sweetness fill her belly as her breasts tightened beneath the rough cloth of the flak jacket he'd given her. She could feel her hardened nipples grazing the material.

Something about this disturbed her. It was deeply wrong to be feeling these things around him, because she knew it was purely sexual. She felt all the familiar twinges of arousal that she normally only felt when she was alone with her rather limited imagination. She'd never felt it around another person. No one had ever caused her to tingle so deliciously the way Kakashi did.

And was he even aware of this effect on her?

"Seems only fair you get the last piece," he said, quite unconcerned that her heavy breathing had nothing to do with exertion. "Me being such a gentleman and all."

Sakura sniggered and turned her head away as he tried to push the bad tasting mushroom into her mouth. He followed her, so she twisted the opposite way. Eventually he was forced to relinquish his hold on her wrist to grip her chin to hold her still. This time when he pushed the food to her lips, she opened them without resistance and took it into her mouth…

Along with his finger.

She didn't know why she did it, but at that moment it seemed perfectly reasonable, and he'd been partly responsible too. She felt drunk. A heady sensation had been creeping over her since the moment she'd straddled his chest. It felt only natural that that when his finger dipped slightly too far between her lips that she should stroke it with her tongue and suck it the same way he'd sucked her thumb about this same time last night.

The mushroom didn't matter. She swallowed it quickly, more to get it out of the way than anything else. Her lips fastened around his index finger, scraping it gently with her teeth and swirling her tongue around the tip, as if she'd enjoyed the crappy mushroom so much that she wanted to suck off every leftover taste from his skin.

He didn't pull away. If he had, she would have stopped, but he didn't. She looked up at his face and saw that it was slack and impassive. She would have mistaken it for his normal expression if his lips hadn't been slightly parted and he hadn't been staring so intensely at her mouth. He was breathing a little hard as well, but it had been too long since he'd pinned her for it to be from physical exertion.

His finger gave a gentle thrust against her mouth. It was such an instinctual motion, and it reminded Sakura rather vividly of a different kind of thrusting. The thought brought heat to her cheeks and had it rising in her belly. She arched and gave a tiny moan, flexing her hand where it was pinned beneath his.

Then his finger left her mouth, dragging a damp trail down over her bottom lip, chin and down her throat. She could see from the blank look on Kakashi's face that he was merely an observer, unable to control what his hand did, though he was clearly enjoying the show. His finger followed on its direct path down to her sternum, where it met resistance from the zipper of her pale flak vest.

He began to push it down, hesitantly, as if unsure of his actions.

Sakura was in two minds. Her breasts were tight and aching, demanding to be touched. Her body was virtually beyond her control, writhing and arching encouragement to the finger pushing her zipper down. But she couldn't shake the bad feeling pressing heavily over her conscious. This was wrong. This was wrong on _so many _levels. It was sordid and taboo and it was _Kakashi-sensei._

Just this little bit of attention from him made her light up from the inside… but it shouldn't have. She should have been immune to this kind of want, after having known him for years and viewing him as nothing more than 'one of the grown-ups'. And he should have known better too. She'd been his student and surely everything he felt for her was just reserved to normal and platonic teacher-student relations.

Clearly this was not normal.

Kakashi seemed to realize this the moment he'd pushed the zipper far enough to expose the valley between her breasts. Ever so slowly he pulled the hand away, fisting it against the moss to her side as his expression hardened and his eyes narrowed grimly. He sat up and moved to recline against the tree, knees drawn up to rest his forearms against. He looked mildly upset about something.

Sakura was left on the ground, panting from residual want and an unfulfilled aching. In a way she was relieved that he'd stopped… but the damage had already been done.

Slowly, she pushed herself upright, trying to calm her galloping heart as she looked at his stony profile. "That was a bit weird…" she said, laughing a little in an attempt to lighten the mood, though it was a bit forced.

Kakashi didn't find it as funny. "I'm sorry," he said, quite formally. "That shouldn't have happened. I don't know what came over me."

"No… I was the one who started it. It's my fault," she said quietly, chewing her lip. "I thought… I thought it felt nice." But obviously that wasn't enough to make it right.

Kakashi shook his head. "We're both a bit tired… not really thinking straight." That's right, there had to be some excuse and reason to explain. This time they were without a safety net. They weren't acting for the benefit of Jin, and he wasn't attempting to make a point to her.

But still… denial was a wonderful, sanity-preserving thing.

"It won't happen again," Kakashi said quietly.

Sakura didn't know how to feel about that.

Somewhere nearby, an owl hooted. She was suddenly reminded of where they were and how cold it was getting. She'd been so warm up until a moment ago…

Sakura shivered. Kakashi looked at her, alert enough to notice her small tremor. Wordlessly he held out his arm, inviting her. "Body heat," was all he said.

It was an ordinary procedure, but considering what had just happened, it probably meant a little more. Sakura curled up against his side, feeling a tightness begin to unwind in her chest. She was glad he hadn't decided to snub her completely.

"It's best if we just sleep," he said firmly. "I'll take first watch."

Sakura frowned. "Kakashi-sensei…?"

"Mm."

"Could you… um… I think I might just have another nightmare," she began awkwardly. "Do you think maybe you could…"

"Use the sharingan?" he supplied. "If that's what you want. But don't forget I'm not always going to be sleeping with you to do this… um…"

Wow. That came out wrong.

"I know," Sakura said quickly. "But since you're here. Please…?" She gave her best melting eyes and pouting mouth combo.

Kakashi swallowed hard, evidently becoming less resistant to this charm the more she used it. "Alright," he said reluctantly, and opened his sharingan.

When the familiar warmth dragged her under and her head fell against his shoulder, she could have sworn she felt a warm pair of lips press against her forehead.

But it was probably just wishful imagination.

* * *

TBC 


	10. Which is full of talking

AN: Sorry about the delay. Had some severe uploading problems. The problem's still there, but at least I figured out a way around it. Now, on with the story before I talk more…

* * *

_I won't let it show, _

_I'm all about denial. _

_But can't denial let me believe _

_That we could talk about it? _

_But we can't talk about it. _

* * *

When Sakura had first cracked the method behind enhancing her strength with chakra, she'd also cracked four knuckles and rent a bicep. But the pain of going around hitting rocks with her bare fists was nothing to how it felt the following day. Back then, every time she had used her chakra to blow things up, be they rocks, trees or uncooperative washing machines, the backlash on her muscles was agony. There were days following training where she could barely even lift her arms for how much it hurt. 

Tsunade had warned her that this was because her technique had yet to be perfected. It was all well and good channeling the chakra forward into a target, but it was not yet complete until she learnt to use the chakra to buffer the strain on her own body.

"It's multitasking," Tsunade had told her flippantly. "You have to defend yourself against your own attack at the same time or else you're going to wear yourself out _fast_. And trust me, it's aging."

Of course, Sakura was quite confident that she'd honed her skills well enough to avoid the painful repercussions nowadays. But overdoing it was still a problem. If she expended all her chakra or she pushed harder than her own body could cope with, she often wound up crippling herself - as she discovered the following morning when she woke up on a blanket of moss with her body wracked in pain.

"Ow… ow… ow, ow, ow!"

Kakashi looked at her over the top of his book. "Are you ok?" He was sitting a few meters away near the curtain of willow branches, twirling a flexible twig between his fingers as he read. He'd let her oversleep again.

"I'm fine," she muttered unconvincingly as she crawled slowly onto her knees. "You didn't wake me up for my watch."

He shrugged. "I could handle it," he said simply. "And you _did _fall asleep last time you were on watch."

Sakura's jaw tightened in both pain and irritation. "One mistake… you make _one_ mistake…" She sat up slowly and groaned as her shoulders protested. Her arms shook ever so slightly as she pushed herself to her feet. She caught Kakashi frowning at her, but when she met his gaze he slid his attention back to his book.

It was then that Sakura recalled what had happened the previous night. Although, in terms of notable bases, nothing much had happened at all really. It wasn't like they'd kissed or groped or done any of the usual things that two people locked in such an intimate position might do. She'd just licked his finger and he'd played with her zipper a bit.

But it had been so much more than that… because she'd seen something in the eyes of her sensei that went way beyond platonic affection. It both scared and excited her. No one had ever looked at her quite like he had at that moment… as if the only thing that mattered to him was her body.

Why had he looked at her like that? Why had she even started it by taking his finger into her mouth? Right now the idea mortified her, but last night she'd been too drunk on their proximity to care. Perhaps he had felt the same? It was hard to say what had possessed them to act that way… but Sakura was pretty sure she was the one who'd started it (though there was probably something funny in that mushroom too). She could only hope that Kakashi didn't hold it against her.

Sakura looked at his turned back and the twig spinning rapidly between his fingers, so fast that it was forming a blurred circle. Suddenly it stopped spinning as he moved his hand to turn the page. Then it started again, twirling slower than before, but building up speed until he had to turn the page again.

He was ignoring her. Normally by now he would have shut his book and announced that they were to continue homeward.

Seeing as how they weren't going anywhere, Sakura sat down heavily, jarring her aching body. "Are you mad at me?" she asked quietly.

The twig stopped spinning. He flicked the tip twice with his thumb before turning to her with a light smile crinkling the corner of his eyes. "For what?" he asked, but it seemed to be rhetorical, as he quickly went back to his back and started twiddling with the twig again.

So he had no intention of discussing it? Well, that wasn't so shocking. Trying to get Kakashi to discuss such personal matters was like trying to bleed a stone.

And maybe he was right? Maybe it was best just not to talk about it. Nothing good could come of this kind of thing, so why even acknowledge it?

It was best just to… forget it.

Suddenly Kakashi slapped his book shut and tossed the twig away. "Alright. Let's continue homeward, shall we?" he said as he stood.

Yes, the sooner they reached Konoha the better. There they'd be able to put some space between them and get back to normal. Sakura nodded her agreement and began to stand again, only to have the muscles in her back protest loudly. She gasped in pain and clenched her jaw. Kakashi looked at her again.

"You're hurt," he said flatly.

"No, I'm fine." She tried to straighten normally, but her shoulders screamed in agony and she wound up grimacing all over again. "Ok… just a little hurt."

He folded his arms and turned completely towards her. "It's alright if you want to take a moment to heal," he offered.

Sakura appreciated the thought, but… "It's not that simple," she told him. "I overdid myself yesterday. I think I tore a few muscles, but they're already healed. Now they're just knotting and cramping on me." She squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed a shoulder fruitlessly. Oh, how she wished a herd of hippos would come out tearing out of the forest to trample on her back. She needed something _extreme _to loosen up these muscles.

A large warm hand settled on her bare shoulder and Sakura's eyes snapped open with a jolt. Kakashi was standing before her, looking his normally blasé self. "Sit down," he said easily. "I'll massage them for you."

Sakura's mouth worked for a moment. "No, it's alright. I just-"

"It's not a problem."

"I know, but-"

"Sakura, you're obviously in pain…" He raised an eyebrow at her, as if suspicious of her strong denial. Sakura caved and slumped onto her backside. She swiveled carefully so he could kneel behind her, both hands on her shoulders now.

She couldn't deny the warm shiver that ran down her spine when his fingers began to knead the muscles of her shoulders gently, though she reckoned that was simply a normal response to a massage. She sighed as some of the tension faded away, replaced by a simmering hum of pleasure. Every time he found a new knot she hissed, then groaned as he rubbed it into relaxation.

"How did you do this," he asked gently, pressing a thumb in small circles down the back of her neck.

"Well, Matsura may be old, fat and slow, but he's quite strong. Almost as strong as me. I had to work quite hard to keep him from strangling me…"

She heard Kakashi sigh behind her. "I'm sorry."

"Not your fault," she shrugged. "Ooh… a bit lower… bit lower… ah, that's it. _Right_ there. Mmm."

She squirmed a little, under his hands. "Keep still," he told her, somewhat gruffly.

"Alright, but just a bit further left – ah!"

She broke off with a sudden, broken cry and an arched back as he found a tender spot near her spine. She felt him hesitate slightly, easing off the pressure. "No – keep going, that feels _really _good."

But he pulled back completely and stood, brushing imaginary lint off his sleeves. "No, I think that's done the job for now," he said in a tone that hinted there would be no arguing. "Can you move now?"

Sakura pulled a frown at his sudden withdrawal and gave her shoulders an experimental roll. "Um… it's still a bit stiff, and my arms are really sore-"

"Don't worry about it. You'll loosen up as we travel." He turned away.

"I guess," she sighed, getting to her feet. She felt slightly cheated. She'd given him an _ace _massage the other day, and here he was repaying her favor by cutting it short.

"Come on," he said. "Get ready and we'll set off. There's only another six hours or so between us and Konoha."

"Right."

Conversation was incredibly stilted as they traveled. Kakashi wasn't normally a chatterbox while on the move, but he at least normally allowed her to keep pace with him. This time he pulled ahead. He was either discreetly trying to leave her behind or had forgotten she was with him. But the occasional glance back in her direction let her know he was still mindful of her. Perhaps she was just slowed down thanks to her stiff muscles.

They passed another village, and Kakashi let her take a quick detour to grab a decanter of clean water and a couple of apples. He refused whatever she tried to share with him, and soon they were on the move again. Sakura wondered if he was deliberately trying to make a point by refusing the food – that he might be subtly hinting she was being a nuisance by wanting a break and sustenance.

But then, he normally refused most of what was offered to him.

However, this time there was a certain cold and distant manner to the way he regarded her. As if he really _was _mad at her, despite what he'd said. Since last night, things really had turned quite unpleasant. Kakashi wasn't happy about what had taken place, though Sakura wasn't sure who or what he was angry at.

She endured another hour of festering silence before she finally slowed to a full stop beneath the shelter of a large elm. Up ahead Kakashi quickly realized she wasn't following anymore and came to his own halt, looking back at her questioningly. "What's wrong?" he called. "Are you tired?"

Sakura was slightly insulted that he thought she would be so easily tired after only a few hours on the move. "I'm not tired," she began, stalking towards him. "Unless it's of _you_."

Confusion clouded the visible half of his face. "Uh…"

"Look, I'm sorry, ok?" she said when she'd stopped a few meters from him. Her face was heating up again, and frankly she was sick of being so susceptible to blushes. "I shouldn't have done it – I wasn't even thinking. I'll admit it's my fault, but you're being completely-"

"It wasn't your fault," Kakashi interrupted. The confusion was gone and he was looking slightly off to the side, rubbing the back of his neck.

"But I started it," she pointed out.

Now he looked skyward. "Yes, but it was me who… ah, never mind."

"Never mind what?" she pressed, scowling at him.

"I'll tell you when you're older." He began turning away again, hands stuffed in pockets.

Sakura cut in front of him in the blink of an eye, halting his next step. "I _am_ older!" she snapped. "You can't pull that one with me. I've been a legal adult since I was fifteen! I've killed people and saved people and I'm paying for my own roof over my own head! How am I not old enough to talk to?"

"Sakura, I-"

"I'm sick of you always treating me like a child!" she ground out, giving him a good shove in the chest. He swayed back on his heels, hands still in pockets. "Always bossing me around and telling me what to do and taking over _my _mission and always feeling like you need to help me!"

"If I treat you like a child, it's only because you act like one," he said lightly, but clearly intending to patronize her.

"I do _not _act like a child!" she blustered.

"You argue like a child."

"We've having an _adult_ difference of opinion!" she raged. "Why are you putting me down like that? Of all the people in the world it's _you _who I need…" She broke off suddenly, wondering if her mouth was running away with her and she'd said too much. But it was too late now. She just had to keep going. "Of all people, it's you who I need to see what I've accomplished on my own. I've tried _so_ hard to prove how capable and independent I am, and then you come along and you don't see any of that do you? Do you just see a little girl who's only good for crushing on her teammates?"

Kakashi made a sound that was halfway between a snort and a laugh. "I don't see you as a little girl anymore, Sakura."

"Clearly," she said hotly. "Or I would have been rather worried at the way you were staring at my breasts last night."

This was obviously the wrong thing to say, as Kakashi suddenly took a step back and averted his gaze back to the trees with a frown. "It was a mistake," was all he said before brushing past her to continue along their route.

Extracting her foot from her mouth, Sakura quickly hurried after him. "Alright, I'm sorry. But if you really don't see me as a child, then stop trying to brush me off like this."

Gradually, he drew to a halt, one hand pinching between his eyes. "What exactly is it you want me to say, Sakura?" he asked, half turning to her. "You're confusing the hell out of me."

_She _confused_ him_? That was a bit rich…

"Well, a little discussion would be nice," she said, feeling a bit self-conscious. "I'm a bit confused too, you know."

"Right. So we've established that we're both a little confused," he said dryly. "What wonderful progress this discussion is having."

Sakura's mouth set in a grim line. "You're not being very helpful."

"I thought you didn't want me being helpful," he pointed out, eyebrows tilted in query. "As I recall, you seem to take that as me treating you like a child."

"You _know _what I mean, Kakashi-sensei," she bit out.

He shrugged. "Perhaps… but if you want to stop being treated like a student, maybe you should stop treating me like I'm your teacher. You may be of age for the last two years, but I haven't been your teacher in five. You want equality and respect? You have it. Just give me the same."

Sakura stared at him. "What… you don't want me to call you 'sensei' anymore?" she asked uncertainly.

Once again, he shrugged. "It's up to you. Call me whatever you want. But please, nothing cruel."

"Like… Dandruff-head?"

He passed a hand over his eyes. "Cruel and completely untrue," he said. "Perhaps just 'Kakashi'?"

Sakura wrinkled her nose. "But that sounds weird."

"Or Hatake."

"That's even weirder."

"… is there something wrong with my name?"

"No, it's just… can't I call you Kakashi-sensei? It's what Naruto calls you still."

"But Sasuke just calls me by my first name," he pointed out, as if expecting her to copy the Uchiha for the sake of it.

"Yes, but that's just Sasuke trying to disrespect you."

"Really?" This probably wasn't news to him, but he still acted mildly surprised. "Well, either way, why don't you try it for a day? If it really bothers you, go back to 'sensei' or whatever. I won't mind."

Well, that _sounded_ reasonable. "Alright… Kakashi," she said, with the distinct impression that she was leaving an incomplete sentence.

"Ok, Sakura," he said, rolling off her first name with much greater ease. But then, he'd been calling her that for years. "What did you want to 'discuss'?"

He was listening, arms folded and single-eyed gaze fixed firmly on her face. This was roughly all she'd managed to plan to far, and where everything roughly fell apart. "Um… well… not _discuss_, or anything really… um… just…" she floundered. "Well, I just need to know I'm not going crazy. I mean, these _things_ that have happened… I don't really understand or-"

She broke off as Kakashi suddenly reached out towards her. He flicked a few strands of her hair above her ear before retracting his hand. "Beetle in your hair," he said, showing her the offending bug before dropping it to the ground.

"Right," she said, trying to collect herself again. "Where was I?"

"I have no idea," Kakashi replied blandly.

Sakura sighed and let her shoulders sag. "Fine… whatever. I just don't want you feeling guilty or responsible for what happened," she said quietly. "It was my fault too. I think… I think I've been getting the wrong signals."

Kakashi lowered his head a fraction. "The wrong signals…?" he asked, just as quietly.

Sakura looked at him uncertainly. "I can never be sure what you're thinking. Or how you feel. It's probably because of that stupid mask you always wear." And with that, she reached out and snatched the green nylon shirt she'd given him to tie around his face. His hand came up in surprise, almost as if to hide his newly bared features. "How am I supposed to know how you feel when you're constantly hiding it all behind this? I mean, how do you feel now?"

"To be honest, a little violated," he said and stepped forward to reclaim the mask. She held it aloft behind her back and refused to back away. His front bumped hers as he attempted to reach round her without success.

"That time you… with my thumb… in the bar," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "Did that mean something?"

Kakashi said nothing. He only stared down at her face, completely lacking any kind of humor now. His mouth was just a thin line, offering even less expression than his one hooded eye and closed sharingan.

"And last night…?" she forced herself to go on, though she could almost feel herself shrinking beneath the intensity of his gaze. "What actually happened?"

Every time she breathed, her oversized vest brushed against his shirt. He was so close she could feel his cool breath on her forehead and see the flecks of black in his dark gray iris. She was also close enough to see the stubble lining his jaw and the almost imperceptible purple smudges beneath each eye, testament to the fact he'd stayed up all night reading.

"What's happening now?" she whispered, almost fearfully.

His eyebrows pinched together slightly, creating two deep furrows between them. He seemed to be swaying slightly, or maybe that was her. The sharingan had crept open, but it was fixed on her mouth like the other eye, watching her chew her lower lip. She looked at his lips too and noticed they were pale and dry, and slightly parted. Immediately she remembered what had happened in the gallery, and how it had felt to have those very lips pressed against her own. Was it even right she should be thinking about that? Was it ok to actually want it again?

Kakashi suddenly released his breath in a whoosh and swung back, as if awakening from a particularly gripping genjutsu. "Nothing," he muttered. "Nothing at all."

It took Sakura a moment to realize he was actually answering her question, and then he was turning away. Walking away.

Sakura's hand snagged his sleeve.

Neither of them moved.

"Please don't brush me off, Kakashi-sensei," she said quietly, staring so hard at the ground between them that she barely noticed her hair obscuring her vision.

"I thought I told you not to call me that," he pointed out patiently.

He wasn't facing her, so Sakura applied a little extra tug of strength to bring him back around. He staggered at the unexpected pull and glanced down at her in surprise. "I still feel like I could learn things from you."

He gave a soft laugh, more out of irony than humor. "Déjà vu," he murmured. Carefully, he extracted his sleeve from her grip and placed his hand atop her head. "You really were my best pupil. But it's not like that anymore, Sakura…"

The warmth of his hand stroked over her hair, smoothing it and tucking it behind her ear. Sakura clasped his wrist lightly and leaned into the tender gesture, not caring that his smile had disappeared again. He extricated his hand. "Sakura…" he began wearily.

Reach out, withdraw. Reach out, withdraw. It seemed to be a reoccurring pattern with this man. Sakura frowned deeply and clenched her fists against her thighs. "Then what _is _it like, Kakashi-sensei?" she demanded. "If I'm not your student and you're not my teacher, then what are we?"

It was the only relationship she'd ever known with this man. Already she could see that it had gradually died since the day of her jonin inauguration, but what had replaced it? What was their link now? Sakura was terrified he'd say something dreadful like 'casual acquaintances' or 'colleagues', because they were more than that. A lot more. She'd probably cry if he didn't acknowledge a stronger bond between them, and that would just be plain embarrassing. Blushing was bad enough as it was.

"Me and you…" Kakashi began hesitantly. "We're-"

"I'm not interrupting anything am I?" a bored voice rang out.

Kakashi remained perfectly calm, but Sakura turned sharply and immediately sank into a defensive stance the moment she spotted the rather unwelcome sight of Matsura Jin standing at the edge of the clearing. He clearly hadn't changed or washed since they'd last seen him, as his sleeves were still a little singed and there was a considerable amount of old blood staining his front.

"Hey, Jin-san," Kakashi called pleasantly over Sakura's silently bristling stance. "How's your dad?"

"Alright, thank you for asking, Kakashi-san." Jin wandered forward a few steps. "Of course, he would be doing better if he had something to piss out of."

Three eyes turned accusingly on Sakura.

"Uh… how much did you cut off again, Sakura-chan?" Kakashi asked pleasantly.

Sakura huffed. "Well, I'm _sorry _if my aim was a little off, I _was _being strangled at the time!"

The distinctive sound of a face hitting a palm echoed behind her, but Jin just shrugged apathetically. "Understandable, I suppose," he sighed. "But I'm not here for revenge, if that's what you're thinking. You can lower your fists."

"Can," Sakura agreed, "Won't."

"I'm just here for the vase," Jin said shortly, looking between them. "Which one of you has it?"

Sakura pointed at Kakashi. Kakashi pointed at Sakura.

Jin's cheek twitched. "Which one of you _really_ has it?"

"She has it," Kakashi said lightly, though Sakura knew for a fact that the vase in question was hiding in his pocket, disguised as a bookmark for Icha Icha Chaos. "But she won't give it up willingly. You'll have to beat her into submission first."

"Kakashi-sensei!" Sakura hissed.

He just shrugged at her.

"I'd rather you just hand it over," Jin told her. "I don't wish to fight. It's very… _troublesome_."

He would get on wonderfully with Shikamaru.

"That, and you don't like hitting women," Kakashi injected conversationally. "I saw the way you pulled your attack when Sakura jumped in the way. You didn't seem to care about hitting your own henchmen though. Contrary to what your father believes, you don't want to hurt a girl."

Sakura's eyes narrowed incredulously as Jin tipped his head indifferently. "It's not something to be proud of, picking on the weaker sex."

"_Weaker_…?" Sakura's mouth dropped open in disbelief. Jin may not have shared his father's penchant for bullying women, but he clearly shared the view that they were too weak to be proper opponents. That was just as chauvinistic in Sakura's book. But once again, it was Kakashi's hand on her shoulder that warned her not to take it too personally.

"Why are you so desperate to get it back, Jin-san?" he asked. "It's just a bit of pottery."

"We have a buyer who intends to take it off our hands next month for a considerable price," Jin told him, even though his eyes were on Sakura. "Why are _you _so desperate to steal it?"

"The owner of the pot wants it back, also for a considerable price," Kakashi answered. "If we just give it back to you now, me and poor Sakura-chan will go home empty-handed and have to survive another week on whatever we can scrape off the sides of our fridge."

"My heart bleeds," Jin deadpanned.

"But if you let us take it back, we'll get paid and leave you alone," Kakashi began. "The pot will got back with the original owner and you're free to steal it back whenever you want, so _you _can get paid too. Win, win. No one loses."

Apart from the guy who actually _owned _the pot, of course. Though Sakura didn't mention this.

Jin looked reluctant. "I'd rather have it now, Kakashi-san. It would be less trouble to fight you both now than wait around and infiltrate that man's guarded house again."

"Mm," Kakashi hummed. "That's what you think. To be fair, Jin-san, I wasn't really putting my all into our little scuffle back there. I was trying to get past you rather than fight you, and I admit my mind was a little preoccupied."

Sakura shuffled her feet guiltily.

"And don't take this girl too lightly either," he went on, touching her shoulder again. "She's one of the most talented in her generation, and I think your father can vouch for how brutal her techniques can be."

Oh great, here came another blush…

"You may be a match for me," Kakashi said firmly. "But not for both of us."

"And I daresay you've already copied some of my own jutsu and figured out my weaknesses," Jin said bleakly.

"Of course!" Kakashi said brightly. "You won't catch me twice with that exploding clone thing. And I've noticed you have a slight weakness in the patella tendon of your left leg. Give me ten seconds and I could make that a whole lot worse for you."

"Don't be ridiculous," Jin droned. "No one could-"

"Alright, fifteen seconds. Care to time me?" Kakashi took out the parrying kunai from his hip and began flipping it over repeatedly in his palm. "Sakura-chan here can heal you up if things get nasty."

"Speak for yourself," Sakura retorted sharply. She still couldn't quite forgive this man for being _that_ guy's son.

"I'm simply here for the vase," Jin reiterated, squaring his shoulders. "I don't want to have to fight you both, but I will if-"

Kakashi tapped her once on the shoulder. "Do it, Sakura."

It was going to hurt her already abused muscles like hell, but she didn't disobey orders. With a sharp cry and a sudden release of chakra, she ploughed her fist into the ground. The earth was damp, but it still split deliciously away from her hand and swallowed Jin's foot before he even had a chance to register the strange attack. He'd obviously never seen anything quite like it.

Kakashi used the momentary confusion to slip around the man's back, nothing but a blue of movement. Jin wasn't quite disorientated enough to miss it, and he started to raise his arm to block the incoming blow… and left himself wide open to Sakura's quick punch to his kidney. It wasn't damaging enough to fell him, but distracted him enough from the hard kick Kakashi delivered to his left leg. He was down in seconds.

He wasn't anywhere near as physically strong as his father, and Sakura had an easy time of holding his arms down as Kakashi sat on his ankles, twirling his kunai again the very weak spot he'd kicked above Jin's left knee. "So," Kakashi looked benignly at Sakura. "How long was that?"

"About six seconds," she grinned back.

"Cool."

"Very embarrassing…" Jin muttered with a sigh.

Slowly, Kakashi stood up, gesturing for Sakura to do the same. She did so a little reluctantly.

"We've no reason to fight you and you're obviously tired," Kakashi explained. "Unless you insist, of course. We just want to go home and get our money. If you want to steal the vase back after that, feel free; we won't care."

Jin got to his feet carefully, favoring his right leg. "And I don't really care one way or another what happens to that thing," he said bluntly. "It's what my father wants, and what my father wants he usually gets." He looked significantly at Sakura when he said this, but she didn't get his drift. "He won't let this matter rest, I warn you now."

"Thanks for that," Kakashi frowned slightly.

Jin grunted and shook the mud off his previously swallowed foot. "Well, have a safe journey, Kakashi-san. Miss."

As he passed Kakashi, he sent him a sideways glance. "You know, you're quite good looking. You should wear your mask less often."

Kakashi looked at him as if he'd just dribbled all over his shirt.

Sakura waited until she was fairly sure he was gone from earshot before speaking up. "I don't think he likes me," she said glumly.

"Castrating someone's father tends to give you a bad rep, I find." Kakashi put away the parrying kunai and rolled his shoulders until they clicked.

Sakura watched him worriedly. "He's right, you know."

"What?" He glanced at her. "About me being good-looking? Well, I could have told you-"

"No – I meant about Matsura. He's going to come after me, isn't he? To take revenge." Distractedly she began rubbing at her aching muscles.

"All the more reason to hurry home," said Kakashi, frowning at the way she rubbed her arms. He moved closer, reaching out as if to take her by the shoulder before seeming to stop himself. "Are you ok?" he asked with forced lightness. "Perhaps I shouldn't have asked you to…?"

"No," Sakura suddenly laughed, dropping her hands in an attempt to throw off his concern. "It was fine. In fact, they feel a little better for the work out," she lied.

He nodded, probably seeing right through her. "I see," he said skeptically, but he still smiled. "We make a good team. Your kidney-punch was timed really well."

"Oh, thanks," she gushed, flattered. "And your kick was aimed perfectly."

There was that daft grin back on his face. The sight of it alone made her want to kiss it away… but that was one of those weird, forbidden thoughts that she had to banish into the back of her mind. She instantly began looking around for his mask before she was assaulted by any more of those kinds of ideas. When she passed it to him, he gave her a grateful smile that disappeared beneath the shirt he tied behind his head.

Summoning her courage, Sakura cleared her throat. "You never finished what you were going to say."

"Huh?" He blinked at her, one eye hooded and almost sleepy-looking.

"About what we… um… never mind."

The moment had passed, her courage was spent and she was just glad he seemed to have forgotten about what had happened last night. No more guilty silences.

"Let's just go home, ok?" Kakashi suggested kindly. But she could clearly his true meaning of, "Let's just not talk about it."

She nodded, torn between relief and the need to find the answer to a question she wasn't even sure how to ask.

Why did some things have to be so needlessly complicated?

* * *

It was still quiet for the remainder of the journey, although it didn't have the same stifling quality as the one before. Sakura kept anxiously glancing over her shoulder, half expecting either Jin or Matsura to be charging towards her with an outstretched sword.

Something else strange was going on too. The closer they got to Konoha and every time Sakura spotted a familiar landmark that signified each closing mile, the heavier her feet became. She was quite conscious of the way she was slowing down, and how Kakashi kept throwing her questioning looks, even though he carefully kept pace with her. Maybe he thought that her aches and pains were making her stiff again? Maybe he knew that the moment they arrived home, it was unlikely that they'd see each other for a while.

There would be the debriefing tomorrow, but once that was done, what reason did they have to hang out together? Really, the only way she'd get to spend a decent amount of time with him again would be if they happened to be assigned another joint mission. But that was unlikely. The only reason they were even together on this one was because half the resident ninjas were already occupied with other missions. The chances of this kind of opportunity cropping up again had to be a hundred to one…

And the moment the high red walls and tall gates of Konoha strayed into view from around the edge of the tree line, something snapped within her chest and she stopped dead. "Wait, Kakashi-sensei."

He stopped and looked at her over the top of his book. "Something the matter?"

"No," she said quietly, shaking her head. "It's just… um… I wanted to say thank you."

"For?" he prompted.

"For just being there for me on this one," she said, speaking more to the ground than to him. "I'm glad it was you… I don't think I would have been as comfortable with anyone else."

Kakashi seemed speechless for a moment. Then he folded his book shut and gave her a smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes. "No problem."

"And um…" God, she could give Hinata a run for her money right then. "Um… I didn't mean what I said earlier about you always treating me like a kid. You don't, and you haven't since I turned fifteen and-"

"Smashed up the ground I was hiding in with your bare fists?" he finished for her. "Yeah, I know."

"And I wasn't really complaining about you taking over and stuff," she went on with difficulty. "I quite like it actually," she said, laughing slightly. "It means I don't have to do the thinking and generally that makes me feel safer."

He nodded slowly, but he didn't share her humor. It was as if he was listening to her tell a story about the gory death of a beloved pet for all the serious and grim fascination he showed. She had a feeling he was listening to a deeper confession she wasn't even aware she was confessing.

Well… there was one thing she felt she needed to get off her chest.

"And, um, about that kiss…"

Although Kakashi didn't move, she could have sworn he'd just thrown himself backward a few feet. There was a sharp intake of breath and suddenly he wasn't actually breathing anymore. He held the air hostage as he waited for her to go on. Sakura toyed with the idea of keeping her mouth shut, just to see how long it took for his face to turn blue.

"Don't feel guilty, ok?" she said with a wry smile and a shrug. "You looked kinda upset when I mentioned it was my first, but I really don't care. I mean, I'd just escaped with my virginity with the skin of my teeth – I wasn't too fussed about losing my kissing virginity at that point. Seemed kind of unimportant by contrast. So… yeah. I hope that's clear, right?"

He released his breath slowly, almost imperceptibly, nodding as he did so. "Mm," he hummed, looking at the gates of Konoha as if he wanted to be over there with the Anbu guards than here with her.

Sakura forced another laugh. "It wasn't that bad anyway," she joked. "I think there can be worse kisses to start off with. I mean, Ino said that her first kiss was kind of like kissing a dog, and since, um… well, I don't know how a dog kisses, but I'm quite sure you weren't kissing like one. When… actually, it might have been a bad kiss, I don't know. Was it a bad kiss?"

She was babbling, she knew it, and probably irritating Kakashi the way she used to irritate Sasuke (and still irritated occasionally). But he just looked at her coolly with a raised eyebrow. "Well, it wasn't really a proper kiss. I don't think it even counts," he told her flatly.

Sakura tried to contain her disappointment and confusion. "Oh…?" She frowned at his chest. "Then what _is _a proper kiss?"

Kakashi opened his mouth, about to respond when he changed his mind. He fell quiet and thoughtful for a moment before finally answering. "You'll find out one day."

Still disappointed that her first kiss would go unacknowledged, she gave him a humorless smile. "Guess there are some things you can't teach me, huh, sensei?"

He didn't seem quite as amused. With a mild shrug and a upward tilt of his eyebrows, he reached out and slowly ran two fingers down the side of her face. Sakura's breath caught in her throat and she stiffened. The two fingers went of tracing the contours of her cheek and jaw before skipping her throat and stopping just at the top of her vest. Sakura looked down, half expecting him to be tugging the zipper down.

She got her nose flicked for her curiosity.

Kakashi ignored her squeak of indignity and shoved both hands back in his pockets. "Nope," he finally replied, sounding bored. "At least not while you still call me _that_."

Sakura, still rubbing her abused nose, looked up at him. "What?"

He was already walking away. "I'll see you tomorrow at the debriefing. Don't forget to write up your report."

As she stood there watching him slink off in the direction of the gates, Sakura realized something quite important.

There were times when she thought she could see beneath the thick and confusing veil of obscurity that Kakashi drew over himself as easily as the mask on his face. It probably wasn't something he was even aware of having, which made it even harder to breach. But every now and then, she caught a glimpse of what the man was thinking. Moments when she finally understood him.

These moments were few and far between, and this was not one of them.

* * *

TBC

* * *


	11. In which Sakura writes her report

* * *

_Hey, Love _

_Is that the name you're meant to have_

_For me to call?_

* * *

Haruno Sakura, Mission #622BF-A Report:-

Team: 1 (Haruno Sakura, Hatake Kakashi)

Casualties: 0 ()

_We started off from Konoha at seven in the morning. We arranged to go at six, but Kakashi-sensei was late. If he claims otherwise, he is LYING._

_The plan was to arrive at Matsura's compound around midnight, but thanks to a really nice and helpful old farmer and his little wagon, we made excellent time. He was deaf. Kakashi-sensei presented me with a small tube of poison made especially by Tsunade-shishou. Further investigation told me this was probably Sleeping Draught E771. Odorless and translucent. I was advised to wear it-_

(on my breasts)

_-in key areas likely to-_

(be touched)

(be groped)

_-come into contact with-_

(Matsura's mouth)

_-Matsura._

_It was Kakashi-sensei's idea._

_We stopped for a break a short distance from the compound where Kakashi-sensei…_

* * *

The first rule about writing up mission reports was to always tell the truth and never omit anything. 

Well, actually, the first rule was to always check your spelling and use legible handwriting, but the rule about telling the truth was generally more important. These reports went in Konoha's permanent records to be poured over by scholars and Hokages for generations to come. If ever anything connected with past missions popped up again to cause problems, the old mission reports would be the first thing hauled out for inspection. If anything was found to be missing, the author of the report would be in some serious trouble.

So it was always a good idea to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

But really, Sakura didn't want to. Some things were just too private. And surely some things weren't integral to the mission and so didn't need mentioning?

It all depended on what Kakashi planned to write, Sakura realized, as she tapped her pen against the broad windowsill. She gazed down at the morning crowds floating past on the street below without really seeing them. The report sat before her, ominously blank while she tried to guess at how Kakashi's version of events would go. Would he follow the rules and include all the sordid little details that had happened between then? Or would he want to keep them to himself? And if he _did _include the details and she didn't, Sakura would have her head ripped off by Tsunade for attempting to omit.

The question was, was Kakashi really that much of a stickler for the rules? Sometimes he could be. But then sometimes he flouted them shamelessly. He really was quite selective of which rules he chose to follow, and Sakura couldn't be sure he wouldn't be honest about the hand-between-the-legs thing.

Best to just leave a gap for that bit and come back to it later…

* * *

_Two of Matsura's men came upon us and we were escorted to the compound under the pretense that Kakashi-sensei had a business transaction to perform._

_They were pervs._

_One had a really bad haircut._

_We reached the compound at about 9-10 o'clock. (Please see enclosed sketch for general layout. Matura's main quarters lie between the rabbit shaped building and the ink smudge.) They said Matsura was a busy man, but judging by how quickly we saw him, he really has a lot of time on his hands, the sad looser. Old lady named Mai brought us to him._

_Kakashi-sensei talked in circles for a while, claiming he wanted Matsura's help on a caravan job next month, and in return he would offer me. Matsura accepted and…_

* * *

Sakura heaved a sigh and flopped backward onto her bed, report crumpled in her hand. It was way too early in the morning to be writing written accounts of the single most traumatizing moment of her life. She was still having nightmares about it. Without Kakashi guiding her into sleep, she'd fallen into a fitful slumber last night, even though she was back in the comfort of her own bed. She'd woken up to find herself stabbing her pillow with the kunai she kept underneath it. 

For the first time in her life, she was quite glad she didn't have a boyfriend sleeping next to her, for it was likely he'd be riddled with holes right about now.

The alarm clock glared at her, letting her know it was eight o'clock. She didn't have to be in Tsunade's office by eleven, so she still had plenty of time to write up her report and get something to eat. Except, her fridge had been pretty empty the night she'd departed on the mission, and whatever was left in it had started turning furry.

And as Sakura had yet to be paid for her grizzly work, she couldn't go out and buy her own food just yet. But that's why friends had been invented.

"Naruto!"

"GAH!"

She had actually been looking for Ino when she'd stumbled across the boy in question. He was, naturally, peeping through the cracks in the fence around the women's bathing area. "What are you doing?" she asked testily, even though she knew _exactly_ what he was doing. She planted her hands on her hips and gave him her most intimidating scowl.

"Sakura-chan! I… dropped something?" he tried lamely, running his hand over the sparse grass around him till his hand found something. "Aha! See? Can't go anywhere without my… stick…"

"Uh huh." Sakura was unconvinced, and to let Naruto know this, she grabbed him by the ear and dragged him back out into the street. The last thing she needed was for someone to peek into the bathhouse garden and see her conversing with Konoha's number two pervert (he was only number one when Jiraiya got bored of mooching off Tsunade and went wandering again for 'inspiration'). Once they were back into safe territory though, Sakura released his ear. "I didn't know you were back from your mission," she said, brightening up. "I thought you were going to be gone weeks."

"Got back last night," he said, grinning at her. "We totally toasted those Akatsuki wannabes!"

It was hard not to smile at Naruto's infectious enthusiasm. "Oh yeah? Where's Sasuke-kun then?"

At this, Naruto's face fell somewhat. "Around. I dunno. He's being a bastard, as usual."

"Aw…" Sakura didn't have much sympathy. Naruto had been saying things like that since the day they'd all become genin. "I know! Let's go get something to eat together."

"Great!" he cheered. "Like a date!"

"You can pay."

"What!" He gave her a bemused look. "Hey, hey… didn't you just get back from a super difficult A-class mission? You're a jonin – you have way more money than _I _do!"

"Some date you are…" Sakura grumbled, hooking her arm around his to drag him along. "I'll pay you back this afternoon. Come on, let's go to-"

"Ichiraku!" he cried happily.

"No. Tea house. Down town. They do nice tempura."

"Aw…"

"Come on."

There was a slightly ulterior motive to head down town to the tea house, and it wasn't just to avoid ramen. Sakura knew for a fact that Kakashi sometimes came to this tea house for breakfast. While he'd never really been a fan of the tempura, he did like the quiet seclusion the little tea house offered. With a big red canopy to keep the sun away, it was the perfect spot to read in.

But when they arrived, there was no Kakashi.

Sakura was slightly surprised by how disappointed she was, but at least Naruto didn't notice as he was too busy looking equally cheated. Ramen depravation could do that to a person. She plopped down next to the cleanest table and tried to tell herself that she wasn't really here to look for Kakashi. Though she couldn't seem to stop looking around…

"So, how'd your mission go?" Naruto asked forlornly as he sat down opposite her and proceeded to sprawl half across it.

Sakura nudged his arm aside to set her bag down. "Alright," she said with forced detachment. She didn't really want to talk about it. Not that she didn't think she could share it with Naruto, but it was quite a depressing topic and she wasn't in the mood to have a depressing conversation. "I have to write my report by eleven though."

"Ooh, like, hardship." Naruto rolled his eyes. "You could write a novel in one morning if you wanted to."

White-haired ninja at two o'clock! Oh wait… no, just some old dude. Sakura forced herself to relax again and pay attention to Naruto. "Sorry, what?" She frowned at him.

"You should try being stuck as a chunin. Not only do you have to do reports, you have to do them about really _boring_ missions," Naruto griped. "It's alright for Sasuke. He doesn't have to write _any_ reports."

"Yeah, that's because they'd mostly consist of 'Today I did some old biddy's washing and put up some shelves'," Sakura reminded him. "You gotta feel sorry for the guy, being stuck with that rank at seventeen. It's shameful."

They both sniggered quite cruelly, safe in the knowledge that their slightly psychopathic friend was probably too far away to overhear them. When the waitress arrived at their table, they shut up guiltily and ordered. For Sakura it was tempura and tea. For Naruto it would have been ramen (until he was shot down by the waitress since it wasn't on the menu) and so settled for just a diet soda in sheer stubbornness. To him, if it wasn't ramen, it was nothing.

While they waited, Sakura pulled the unfinished report from her bag and rested her chin in her palm as she tried to think of how to go on.

Naruto twisted to read the top line. She was too slow to block his view with the menu. "Hatake Kakashi?" he read aloud, seemingly quite surprised. "You went on a mission with Kakashi-sensei?"

Sakura stared back at him cautiously, wondering how he'd react. "Yes…"

"Aww…" Naruto flopped back, dismayed. "How come _you_ get to go on missions with him? It's been ages since I got to go on a mission with him."

"You miss him?" Sakura asked with a hint of surprise.

"I guess… I mean, he's so cool, right?" Naruto grinned at her. "He always says something really cool and witty right before he deals the finishing blow. And with the sharingan it's like – cha! – Take that, suckers! Kakashi-sensei totally rocks. And I want him to see how much I've improved too."

"You still call him Kakashi-sensei," she realized. "Why?"

Now it was Naruto's turn to blink at her in surprise. "Uh… I don't know. Don't you call him that?"

"Yeah, but that's what I mean," she said, squirming in her seat. "He hasn't been our teacher for years, but we still call him sensei. Maybe we should just call him 'Kakashi'?"

"That's a bit weird, though," Naruto said as he scratched his head. "What about Iruka-sensei? I'm equal rank to him, and you've surpassed him, but we both still call him sensei too. It's just… once a teacher, always a teacher, right?"

Sakura chewed her lip. "What if you were to see him as _more_ than a teacher…?"

Naruto stared at her. "More than a… what… oh!" He suddenly sprang upright, face rigid in shock. "Sakura-chan – y-you – you don't mean-!"

"Naruto, keep it down!" she hissed. She hadn't expected him to make the connection so quickly. She wasn't even sure she wanted him to know…

"_You like him!_" he shrieked back.

A few heads were turning their way now. Sakura grabbed Naruto's arm and tugged him towards her. "Keep your voice down or I'll forcibly remove your vocal chords via your _belly button_!" she ground out in a low, dangerous tone.

Naruto recoiled slightly. "Ok," he squeaked in a small voice.

Sakura released him with an air of dignity, but Naruto still stared at her in mild horror. "I can't believe you like Iruka-sensei…"

"What!" Sakura jerked. "I don't like Iruka-sensei!"

"Oh, good!" Naruto seemed relieved. "That would have been kinda weird. But then if you don't… then who… oh…"

Sakura wanted to hide under the table.

"OH!"

The volume was rising again. Sakura buried her head in her arms.

"You like Kakashi-sensei!" he exclaimed through the hand clasped over his mouth. "Kakashi-sensei! You like – oh my god! What's wrong with you?"

Sakura took offense to that. "What do you mean, _what's wrong with me_?" she demanded with a scowl. "Weren't you just going on about how cool he is? Sounds like you have a bit of a crush yourself-"

"But, he's like an old man!" Naruto protested.

"He's only thirty!" Oh great… now she was lying about Kakashi's age _for_ him.

"But you don't even know what he looks like under that mask!" he warned her. "He could be really ugly and disfigured and we still haven't ruled out the possibility of the harelip!"

Sakura looked down at her report meekly. "He doesn't have a harelip," she said quietly.

"How would you know?" Naruto demanded.

Because she'd kissed those perfectly formed lips only a few days ago? She sighed looked around, wishing that their food would arrive, just to have a break from this interrogation. "Because I saw his face," she said wearily. "On this mission. I saw him without his mask on."

Naruto gasped, which was quite needlessly dramatic in Sakura's opinion. "_You saw his face!_" he rasped. "Ooh – you have to tell me! What does he look like! Hey, hey, is that why you're crushing on him now? Because you saw his face? It's some kind of jutsu isn't it? Everyone who looks at him falls in love with him – and that's why he wears a mask, right?"

He probably wasn't too far off the truth there…

"I promised I wouldn't say," she told him. "If Kakashi-sensei wanted you to know his face, he'd show you himself."

A small piece of Naruto's soul visibly died as he wilted back into his seat. "Damn," he cursed brokenly.

Sakura patted his hand compassionately. "Don't worry about it," she told him. "It's just a face. It's the man who matters, not the arrangement of his facial features. He could be ugly and it wouldn't make an iota of a difference."

Naruto was looking at her strangely. "That's exactly what Ino said," he remarked.

"What?"

"Ino. That's what she said when we told her she was crazy for crushing on Kakashi-sensei."

It took a moment for Sakura to get her head around that statement, but as soon as it sunk in… "_What!_" she yelped.

Naruto recoiled for a second time.

"Since when did Ino fancy Kakashi-sensei!" she demanded.

"Uh… since she decided Sasuke was too unattainable." Here he rolled his eyes. "Like old-man Kakashi's any likelier to fall for her."

"Argh! That's so annoying!" Sakura smacked the table with her flat palm. "Why does she always go after the ones I want? And how does she always know who I want before I do? I swear she only does it to annoy me…"

Naruto had sobered up quite severely now. He looked at her with unease. "Hey, Sakura-chan… you don't really _want_ Kakashi for yourself, do you?" he asked cautiously. "It's just a crush, right?"

Sakura met his gaze and immediately felt an unwanted pang of discomfort. "Yeah… it's just a crush," she told him, though she had to wonder if she was telling a white lie. "Hey, it's not like Kakashi-sensei is going to be interested in me, right?"

Except for that the fact that… maybe he already was?

But Naruto looked happier, so she didn't mention that. "Good," he said. "'Cause that would be kinda weird. That would be like… dating your dad or something – or worse, your _teacher_."

The pang of discomfort exploded into the form of a mild panic attack. "Shut up, Naruto," she said bluntly, feeling the hairs prickle unpleasantly down the back of her neck. That was the last thing she needed to hear. It was bad enough that everyone had kept mistaking Kakashi for her father whilst on the mission, but she really didn't need Naruto to remind her of the age gap as well. And the way he said it… he made it sound so _wrong_.

Maybe it was wrong?

Rubbing her hands over her face, Sakura looked at her report unhappily. "I have to finish this," she said, more to herself than Naruto. "I only have three hours."

"Oh, quick!" Naruto ushered her on. "You might not be able to write all ten thousand pages you normally write!"

"Hey, shut up…"

Naruto chattered on about everything and nothing while she worked. Talking about how cool he'd been on the mission and how lame Sasuke was being about some incident involving spilt miso soup. When the food arrived, he took most of what Sakura had on her plate and still managed to keep the one-sided conversation rolling. Sakura only half-listened, and wasn't even aware of her missing tempura as she agonized over which details to omit in the report.

* * *

_We found the hallway of mirrors and the gallery on the fifth floor. After a little bit of searching, we located the vase and Kakashi-sensei used a jutsu to disguise it as a kunai. We would have made an exit then, but we heard people coming. We suspected one to be Matsura Jin, Matsura's son, a man who could possibly have posed a serious danger to us. We had to…_

(Pretend to make out to throw off suspicion? God… she could just imagine Tsunade's face when she read that. Maybe she could just be deliberately vague about how they'd gotten out of that one?)

_Kakashi-sensei wound up drugging himself by…_

(Fondling her bare breast? More Vague required!)

_After a long hard night without our supplies, we traveled southward to avoid leading any trackers to Konoha. We were followed, but we thought we lost them at one point as we doubled back to lodge at a convenient market town. I think that was where the old deaf man was heading…_

_Kakashi-sensei sold the diamond from the vase. I begged him not to, but he deliberately flouted my authority. But we got some money and I got some clean clothes at last. I found this really nice green top. I wanted a red one, but I couldn't find one in my size, and the pink ones just made he downright _frumpy_. Really, these clothing designers do not cater towards people of my size and shape. And it's like they've never heard of this thing called a _'waist'_. Those brown pants I bought were practically falling down at every opportunity. V. embarrassing._

_So anyway, we lodged there. We had to share a room._

(But nothing about sharing a bed…)

_Matsura and his son found us in the morning. They must somehow have realized we'd doubled back and had tracked us, or they'd just found us by dumb luck. Probably the latter. They captured Kakashi-sensei first. They caught me when I left the inn and demanded we return the vase._

(Would Kakashi admit to handing over the vase freely in return for Sakura's safety? Well… Sakura wouldn't report it. Not that anyone would bring him up on that particular decision.)

_Matsura dragged me back to the inn with the probable intent to rape me. Kakashi-sensei tried to help me, but he was hindered by Jin. When I tried to fight back, Matsura tried to strangle me._

_In retaliation, I cut off his balls and most of his dick-_

* * *

A sharp, appalled gasp broke her out of her work and she looked up to see a rather pale Naruto staring at her in horror. She hadn't noticed that he'd stopped talking at least ten minutes ago and had long since polished off the last of the food she had yet to touch. 

And it seemed he'd been reading what she'd been writing.

"He tried to rape you?" he whispered. Then, louder, he added, "You _cut _off his balls!"

"He _totally _deserved it," Sakura told him. "And I didn't really have many options at hand."

"But… wow… talk about ultimate payback," Naruto said, still looking shaken. "Remind me not to piss you off."

"Why? You'd still manage to do it somehow..." She folded up the report and stashed it back into her bag to continue at a later time now that Naruto planned to read whatever she wrote. 'Top Secret' clearly meant nothing to this boy. As she jerked the zip straight, someone sat heavily in the seat beside Naruto. She looked up and brightened instantly. "Sasuke-kun!"

He raised a hand in an impassive response.

Naruto didn't seemed as happy. "How come you didn't greet me as nicely as that?" he grumbled, leaning his chin on the table.

"Because you were spying on naked women when I greeted you," she reminded him.

Sasuke chose wisely to move past this topic. "How was your mission?" he asked her evenly.

Before she could respond, Naruto had already piped up. "She battled two different S-class ninjas and totally castrated one of them."

Sasuke nodded, as if it was all in a day's work. "I fetched Tibbles back down from the tree again," he informed her. "I got a bonus payment for this being the tenth time in a row."

"Wow… you're so hardcore, Sasuke," Naruto said flatly.

Sasuke acknowledged this with a nod. "Is it true?" he asked Sakura, his bored gaze sharpening on her with interest. A few years ago she would literally have _killed_ for him to look at her like that; as if she was something impressive and worth the four of five seconds it took to notice her existence. But nowadays his respect had been earned and he often took interest in her missions. Though she knew not to equate this interest in missions with an interest in _her_. "Did you really fight two S-types?"

"Well, sort of…" She blushed a little. "One was a bit past his prime and the other was… well, I think Kakashi-sensei mostly dealt with him."

"Oh, yeah…" Sasuke looked away distractedly. "Kakashi was looking for you a little while ago."

Sakura's heart gave an unwarranted flutter. "Oh?" She tried to sound casual, but she could feel Naruto staring hard at her.

"Said something about the debriefing time being changed," Sasuke told her. "I think it's earlier than planned."

Sakura groaned, looking at her watch. "How much earlier?" she asked.

He shrugged.

"Damn… I better go find out what's going on." She got to her feet and took a long swig of her cold tea before planting a big wet kiss on Naruto's cheek. "Thank you for the 'date'," she told him sweetly.

And just so Sasuke wouldn't feel left out, she kissed his cheek too. He didn't appreciate it as much, but he'd long since given up trying to lean away from her, instead suffering it with the grim courage of a man being subjected to mild torture.

As she slung her bag over her shoulder and trotted away, she could have sworn she heard Sasuke say, "Date? What did she mean, '_date'_?"

Sakura made her way steadily toward the hokage's tower, asking the occasionally familiar face if they'd seen Kakashi. Most people hadn't, but she had some luck with Shikamaru who was hanging out near the academy gates with Temari.

"Yeah, he was looking for you before," Shikamaru drawled and shrugged a shoulder.

"And we're not on a date," Temari interjected.

"Do you have to say that every time someone sees us together?" Shikamaru gave her a mildly exasperated look. "You make people suspicious…"

Temari huffed, and so did Sakura, but for another reason entirely. "Hey, I've a bone to pick with you," she said, jabbing the collar of Shikamaru's vest.

"Eh?" He looked worried, and with good reason.

"Where the hell do you get off telling Kakashi-sensei I was a virgin?"

Temari snorted. "You're a virgin?" she asked incredulously. "Hey, wait, how did _you_ know she was a virgin?"

"Hey, everyone in that bar knew she was a virgin," Shikamaru said, shrugging again. "He would have found out eventually. Ino spreads gossip like that like a pyromaniac."

"Alright, whatever," Sakura sighed, now tingling with unease that in the time she'd been away, Ino might have spread this news far and wide. "Did Kakashi say anything to you about a debriefing?"

"Yep." Shikamaru jangled the change in his pocket. "It's been moved up or something. He said he was going to the tower."

"Aw, crap," Sakura hissed, running her hands through her hair. "I haven't even finished my report yet."

"Better hurry."

"Thanks anyway," she said, starting to run. "I'll get you back later for tattling on me, Shika!"

"When will that be?" he called after her. "Just so I can make some room in my diary."

"When you least expect it!"

Kakashi's genin team was lolling about on the steps outside the hokage's tower when she arrived – a good indication that their teacher was inside. Sakura felt a twinge of an indefinable emotion at the sight of the girl; blonde, short and with dewy brown eyes. She was twirling a lock of hair around her finger and chewing gum. Once upon a time, Sakura had been that girl, and Kakashi had been her teacher too.

It made her feel weird. She couldn't even begin to explain it.

She intended to walk straight past them – she wasn't that well acquainted with them anyway. But the moment they spotted her, they leapt up. "Hey – crying-lady!"

Obviously they still remembered her…

"What?" she asked pensively. They really were quite the bratty bunch. She was _certain_ her team had never been this bad.

"You know Kakashi-sensei, right?" one of the boys asked. "You're his girlfriend or whatever."

Sakura's face went hot. "I… um… what?"

"She's not his girlfriend," the girl said, blowing a bubble. "Typically jumping to conclusions again, idiot…"

"Well, I don't know," said the boy hotly. "She's a girl and she's his friend. And she's old like him."

Sakura lost her temper with a lot of people, but never with kids. Even bratty ones. She smiled tightly and bent down, ruffling his short black hair. "And you will be too, one day," she told him sweetly. But she couldn't deny she felt somewhat better. Yes, he'd called her old, but he'd put her in the same group as Kakashi. To these kids she was just another grown-up. A grown-up like Kakashi.

Hell, yeah!

"If you see him in there, just tell him he's supposed to be training us today," the quiet boy told her. "He's forgotten _again_."

"Right. Will do." Sakura gave them a mock salute and proceeded inside.

She found Kakashi sitting in the waiting area outside Tsunade's office. He was alone, reading his usual book, and when he saw her he gave her a pleasant wave. "Oh good. I was worried you wouldn't get the message. Sasuke-kun isn't the most initiative of messengers…"

A fluttering had started in her stomach at the mere sight of him, and his voice alone was the sweetest music in the world. Apparently their short time apart had made her more physically aware of how his presence really affected her. Just his smile alone made her knees a little weak, so she quickly took her seat opposite him before she did anything embarrassing… like collapse.

"When's the debrief?" she asked cautiously.

"In ten minutes."

She gasped. "I haven't done my report yet!"

"Better hurry," he said, making a scribbling gesture with his free hand before going back to his book.

Sakura took out her crumpled report and turned it over to read where she'd left off. There were quite a few gaps that needed to be filled in, and Sakura needed at least two weeks in order to come up with the right way to phrase certain events. "Um… Kakashi-sensei?"

"Mm," he grunted.

"Can I look at your report?" she asked, batting her eyelashes beseechingly.

"You know we're not allowed to collaborate reports." But he was already reaching into his pouch to produced a rolled up piece of paper. "But I can't resist those eyes."

He probably meant that quite innocently. Probably.

Sakura stood up to take the paper, and a hot splash of butterflies and desire curled in her stomach as her fingers brushed his. Sakura had to retreat quickly again. She was sure the attraction hadn't been this bad yesterday. She seemed more acutely aware of him than ever before.

Sitting back down in her seat, she unrolled Kakashi's report and read. "This is…"

"Mm?" Kakashi looked over his book at her again.

"This is pathetic," she said bluntly, holding up the report for him to see. "This is three lines."

"It's to the point," he explained.

"_We came, we stole, we conquered_. That's what it says." Sakura gave him a dirty look. "And Tsunade lets you get away with this?"

"Frequently."

"_Not_ fair…"

At least this left her free to omit whatever the hell she wanted. She scribbled down that they'd escaped from the gallery by a cunning use of mirrors and that Kakashi had spilt the poison on his hand by accident. She didn't even mention the night at the inn beside the simple '_we slept there' _statement. And on their way back to Konoha, Jin had simply caught up to them with superior speed… and not because they'd stopped to have a semi heart-to-heart regarding their strangely twisted relationship.

Without having to worry about that, Sakura was finished in no time, and spent the remaining few minutes improving her sketch of Matsura's compound.

Then something bubbled out of her mouth before she could stop it.

"Ino fancies you, you know."

Kakashi's book dropped a fraction. "Sorry?"

"What?" Sakura looked up as if she'd said nothing at all.

"You mentioned Ino," he said uncertainly.

"Oh! Yes." Sakura flapped her hand and gave him a dismissive smile. "She likes you, is all. I found out today. Apparently she's liked you for quite a while."

"Oh." Kakashi looked thoughtful. Then he looked at his book. "I see." He turned the page.

Sakura paused her sketch to look at her closely. "Is that all? 'Oh, I see'? What kind of response is that?"

Kakashi lay his book down patiently on his thigh and linked his hands behind his head with a sigh. "Is there a specific way you'd like me to respond to a statement like that?" he asked evenly.

"Well, honesty would be nice," she said. "I mean, doesn't that weird you out?"

"That Ino likes me?" He tilted his head back. "Hum… don't know."

Sakura sketched an extra wall around the compound without thinking. Tsunade was going to think she'd smashed through _four _walls. But Sakura's attention was focused purely on Kakashi, though she tried not to show it. "Don't you think she's a little young for you?" she asked.

The brief silence that followed marked Kakashi's surprise. She didn't need to look at him to know he was giving her a penetrating stare.

"That depends," he said eventually, his tone mild.

"On what?" she asked.

"Lots of things."

Sakura sighed. "You're not very good at giving direct answers, are you?."

"And you're not very good at asking direct questions," he rebuked easily. "Are we really talking about Ino?"

Sakura's pen nib snapped against her report, flooding half of Matsura's compound with a wave of sticky blue ink. "Yes," she said slowly, realizing that perhaps she was had just used Ino's name as a substitute for her own.

"Ah. Ok." Kakashi went back to reading his book.

Giving herself a mental shake, Sakura stood up, Kakashi's report in hand. "Here," she said, stepping forward to hand it to him.

He took it with a nod. "Want to stay the night?"

Sakura flinched. "What?" she gasped.

Kakashi blinked at her. "I said, you've got a stain on it." He pointed to a few sticky blue fingerprints she'd left on his report. "Can't trust you with anything."

Great, now she was imagining things. Sakura sat back down heavily, looking everywhere but at Kakashi. She was worried that if she looked at him for even a second, he'd be able to feel the intensity of her gaze and possibly even read her thoughts. The silence weighed on her, though Kakashi seemed quite content as he chuckled at one of Icha Icha's undoubtedly crude jokes.

Sakura cleared her throat. "Kakashi-sensei, I-"

Tsunade's office door opened. "Good, you're here." The hokage beckoned them in curtly. "Come on, come on. Let's get this done before I get any further behind."

Sakura hopped to her feet and followed Kakashi into the unusually cluttered office. Tsunade's desk was practically groaning under the weight of all the papers and files laid upon it, and five clerks were busily scribbling away to their left.

"Right…" Tsunade took her seat and began rifling amongst the paperwork before her. "Wait a minute."

Sakura shifted her weight. Her shoulder bumped Kakashi's upper arm, quickly making her realize how close they were standing. She discreetly edged a few inches away before Tsunade looked up and noticed too.

"Ah, here we are!" Tsunade declared happily and held up a folder. "Right, yes, the Matsura mission… do you have your reports?"

She read Kakashi's first, which took all of six seconds. She directed an unimpressed look at him over the top of the report. "And here I was expecting a summary of the last Icha Icha chapter you read. You're not normally _this_ vague, Kakashi."

He shrugged. Sakura had to wonder if this unusually brief report had anything to do with what had gone on between them on the mission…

It took Tsunade a little longer to read through Sakura's report, and she frowned through most of it. Sakura chewed her lip anxiously, watching her teacher's expression grow more and more shrewd until, after what seemed like an agonizing eternity, she put the report down.

"So they know who you are and where you're from," she addressed them. "What part of _do not leave anything to implicate Konoha _did you not comprehend? Do you have any idea what trouble this could cause?"

"They recognized Kakashi-sensei," Sakura told her quickly. "And once they picked a fight with us, it was inevitable that they would witness the sharingan. It really couldn't be helped."

"But we have the vase," Kakashi supplied. "I handed it to the clerks last night. Iruka took care of it."

Tsunade snapped a glare on him. "And _you_ sold part of it off!"

Kakashi looked affronted. "I stole it back…"

"And you," Tsunade turned the glare on Sakura. "Castrating that man and not even killing him? Do you realize that of all the precious things to a man – his family, his friends, his honor, his possessions – that his _balls_ will always rank the most important? He will want your head for this."

"I know." Sakura wilted meekly.

Tsunade suddenly leant back and pointed to the door. "Right. Everyone out, except for you," she said, turning her finger on Kakashi.

Either he was about to be whipped over his inadequate report, or they were about to discuss Sakura. The clerks filed out with expressions of patient suffering into an adjoining office. Sakura headed back out into the waiting room again, giving Kakashi a searching look before she closed the door. His face was unreadable.

Since no one was around to see her, Sakura crouched on her knees and pushed her ear as close to the bottom of the door as possible. She made sure that her shadow wasn't falling across the gap as she strained to listen.

"Did you read her report?" she heard Tsunade's muffled voice ask.

"May I?"

"Knock yourself out."

A long silence ensued. Sakura wasn't sure she liked the idea of Kakashi reading her report, especially not her account of what had happened between her and Matsura. It was embarrassing enough that Tsunade and the odd clerk would see it. She _had _already told him about it, but it was doubtful he'd heard little more than _wah-wah-wah-Matsura-wah-wah-wah_ at the time.

Finally, just as Sakura's knees stared to go numb, she heard a slap of paper on desk and Kakashi's voice. "Is there a problem with it?" he asked.

"Is it accurate? In her first encounter with Matsura, she's written that there was a short struggle before she eventually subdued him."

"Ah, yeah."

"What exactly does a 'short struggle' entail?"

"Why don't you ask her yourself? She's just outside if you want me to get-"

Before Sakura had a chance to scramble to her feet and move away, Tsunade interrupted him. "Do you think she'd tell me?" she said. "You don't know Sakura like I do, Kakashi. She's an internalizer-"

"With all respect, I know her better than you think, Hokage-sama. And _internalizer _is not a word."

"Don't interrupt me, brat, and you _know_ what I mean. If something bad happened… _really _bad, Sakura isn't the type to be able to talk about it freely. At least not without the aid of some thumbscrews. So is there anything more you can tell me about what happened?"

"I arrived after Matsura was subdued. I don't know much beyond what she told me."

"And what did she tell you?"

"I wouldn't be a very good confident if I told you."

"I'm not playing this game with you, Kakashi," Tsunade ground out. "This is not about who gets to be Sakura's favorite, most trusted teacher. If something happened, I want you to tell me."

"I don't consider anything about the welfare of my former students to be a 'game'. I'm not competing with you, I'm simply telling you I would be a poor friend if spoke without her permission."

"Did he hurt her?"

"A little. But I don't think it was as advanced as rape."

"Is she ok?"

"She's handling it better than I could have expected."

"Better than you?"

Kakashi's response was an unintelligible grunt. Sakura thought he might have said something else, but it was too quiet for her to catch.

"I shouldn't have sent her on this mission," she heard Tsunade sigh. "Did you know she was a virgin?"

_Oh, no…_ Tsunade had found out.

"I suspected as much at first. But she refused every offer I gave her to back out of the mission. By the time I was sure… it was too late."

"Mm. I myself only found out yesterday. It's been going around the village."

_Oh, no!_ She was going to have to kill Ino… and possibly everyone else who knew she was a virgin. And considering Ino's gossiping skills, that would place three quarters of the village on her hit list.

"But to be honest, Hokage-sama," Kakashi began respectfully. "I don't think anyone else could have completed this mission. When things got tough, she held her own, and I have little doubt that I would probably be dead if it hadn't been for Sakura and her… _insane_ strength."

Sakura's heart warmed a little.

"I taught her that, you know," Tsunade reminded him fondly.

"And I'm awfully glad you did too."

"Well, I'm just happy to see her returned safely. Thank you for looking after her, Kakashi. I knew I could trust you "

"Yeah…"

"Fetch her back in, will you?"

Sakura sprang upright and threw herself into a nearby chair. By the time Kakashi opened the door she was nonchalantly gazing at the ceiling, bobbing her foot in time to unheard music.

"You can come back in," he said, and the look he gave her told her he knew exactly what she'd been doing only moments before. Perhaps she'd taken the nonchalant act too far?

When Sakura took her place beside Kakashi for the second time, Tsunade was writing up her payment slips. "Due to the complications involved in the mission, I've upgraded it to S-class. Sadly, I can't offer you better money since the price has already been set, but at least it looks good on your record."

"Thank you, Tsunade-shishou," Sakura whispered, surprised. It was her first S-type mission ever.

"You risked a lot and you did well," Tsunade said quietly, not looking up. "I'm just making sure everyone can see that."

"Thank you," Sakura said again, unable to keep from smiling.

Tsunade smiled back as she handed them their payment slips. "Don't spend it all at once."

After that, she ushered Sakura and Kakashi out and invited her clerks back in to finish their work. In the waiting room, Sakura cooed over her payment slip, eyeing all the zeros. "I'm going to just park myself in the most expensive sushi bar I can find and keep eating till I explode. God, I'm so hungry I could even eat this check." She kissed it happily. "What are you going to do with yours?"

Kakashi shrugged, folding the paper into his pocket. "Bank it? Save it for a rainy day?"

Sakura tutted at him. "That's boring. You know what you should do? Buy dinner for your favouritest student!"

"What a good idea," Kakashi said happily. "Where is Naruto anyway?"

Sakura poked him hard in the side.

"Ow."

"You're cruel," she told him shortly.

"You're crueler." He rubbed his ribs.

"Then we make a fine pair."

Kakashi tilted his head and gave her a measured look, one that was so strangely out of place in their easily flowing conversation that she almost took a step back. It was like realizing the tame puppy you'd been cajoling was really a wolf with hunger in his eyes. Then he shook his head, gave one soft laugh and turned away with his hands in his pockets. Sakura watched him walk away, not understanding why her heart was beating so hard all of a sudden.

"What?" she demanded, jogging after him. "_What?_"

"Nothing." He was heading down the stairs and towards the entrance.

"Oh – you might not want to go that way," she warned him, suddenly realizing where they were going. "Three squirts are probably out there waiting to pounce on you and demand training."

"Aw… and it was supposed to be my relaxing day," he sighed with an air of long-suffering. He still moved forward though, using his back to push his way through the main doors without removing his hands from their pockets. Sakura followed him out, holding up a hand to shield the bright sun that bleached the street.

There were no kids. Kakashi shrugged. "Must have gotten bored," he said. "Brats these days have no patience."

Unsurprisingly, he chose that moment to take out Icha Icha Chaos. But he didn't open it. Instead he simply tapped the book's spine against his masked chin as he stared into the distance, as if wrapped up in some deep philosophical thought. Sakura couldn't help but wonder what kind of things such a genius mind could ponder. She herself was clever, but Kakashi probably boasted the most impressive IQ in the village – and that included Shikamaru. Sakura would give anything to know what was going on in his head.

"…I'm totally putting fabric conditioner in the next wash," he murmured. "These clothes itch in all the wrong places. If I scratched, I'd probably get arrested."

Although there were some things he ought to keep to himself.

Sakura held her temper admirably. "Where are you going now?" she asked in what she hoped was a light and casual manner.

He looked at her. "Home. To read. To sleep. To hide from those kids mostly."

She nodded, not really listening. "So… um… I guess this is it?"

Kakashi cast a confused look around. "Is it?"

"Well, we probably won't see each other for a while," she said quietly. "I'm sure you've got lots of missions lined up and you'll be busy, busy, busy, like always."

"Sure," he tilted his head. "But didn't I promise to buy you dinner?"

Sakura stiffened. "I was just joking…"

"I'm not," he said, shrugging, watching her intently.

Sakura felt like the world had suddenly gone dark and a spotlight had snapped on directly above her. Dinner with Kakashi? Wouldn't that be like… a date? She _was _the one who'd offered, but he usually declined, so her offer had really only been for the sake of teasing. She wasn't sure how to answer.

"Hey, Forehead! How's it hanging?"

Sakura looked across the street to see Ino strolling past, accompanied by the other two members of her old team. Chouji was laughing like she'd just told a hilarious joke, while Shikamaru was keeping hidden behind his two teammates, looking decidedly nervous.

Sakura scowled.

Suddenly Kakashi lifted his hand. "Hi, Ino!" he called cheerfully.

The girl almost tripped over. "Oh – h-hi, Kakashi-sensei!" she called back, her blush visible even at this distance. God, she was transparent.

Sakura ignored her in favor of fixing Shikamaru with a glare. "When you _least_ expect it, Shika!" she reminded him ominously.

Shikamaru hunched lower behind his friends. "Whatever, just don't castrate me alright…?"

Sakura felt her insides turn to ice. "Oh, god…" Naruto had _told_ them. He must have! Ino probably knew too from her delighted expression (although that could have been Kakashi's effect on her), and if Ino knew, half the village probably knew by now as well.

Almost as if to confirm this, Genma suddenly strode past them, on his way out of the building behind them. He gave Kakashi a 'Hey, wassup?' grunt and a clap on the shoulder. To Sakura he gave a wink, a click of his tongue, and a snip-snip motion with his hands.

"Oh, god, they _all_ know!" she hissed to Kakashi as Genma and his senbon mooched away down the street. "I can't trust Naruto with _anything_!"

"You told Naruto?" Kakashi murmured. "How long ago?"

"About half an hour."

"Oh. In that case the gossip is probably half way to Suna by now," he told her cheerfully. "On the bright side, this could get your name into bingo books everywhere."

"For all the wrong reasons," she said, despairing. She'd joked about it with Kakashi, but she really didn't want to become the infamous _Deballer of Men_. She'd never be able to make it with a boy at this rate. They'd all be too afraid of her, as Shikamaru had clearly demonstrated.

Ino and her team were nearly out of sight, but Ino was still loud enough to be heard. "Bye, Kakashi-sensei!"

He waved back politely, but sighed and dropped his hand the moment she disappeared around a street corner. "You know, maybe you're right," he said evenly. "Maybe she _is _too young for me?"

Sakura watched him as he moved down the remaining steps and into the street. She made no move to follow him.

"Tell you what," he said, turning to her. "Forget about dinner. I'll see you 'round."

Which was a way of saying he had no plans of seeing her again. At all.

A lump formed in Sakura's throat. "But… I didn't say no…"

Either Kakashi didn't hear her or he was simply ignoring her. Sakura felt it was probably the latter. And it was odd, but watching Kakashi's retreating back reminded her of another time when she'd watched someone else's back move away from her. The same powerless feeling took hold and mocked her. It was terribly easy to just stand there and let it slide – far easier than confronting it and taking control. Sakura wasn't sure she had the courage to step up and put herself on the line. Facing down a killing strike from a sword was easy. Facing down whatever this was between her and Kakashi was something else entirely.

It was not unlike contemplating jumping in front of a hundred swords aimed for her heart. But she took the gamble anyway.

"Kakashi!" She ran after him.

He stopped dead and turned slowly, waiting. Sakura came to a careening halt a few feet from him, overflowing with nervous energy. In contrast, Kakashi was calm. His book was still in hand as he regarded her lazily, squinting against the sun. He was nonchalant, but alert. Waiting.

Sakura's courage ran yelping for cover.

She swallowed and looked down, humiliated in the face of her own cowardice. "It was fun serving with you, sensei," she said flatly. Which was another way of saying they'd probably never work together again. "I'll see you 'round."

Who was she trying to kid? Facing a hundred swords aimed for her heart was nothing compared to facing her heart.

She turned. He turned. They walked away from each other and didn't look back.

* * *

TBC

* * *


	12. In which summer arrives

* * *

_And I would be the one _

_To hold you down, kiss you so hard _

_I'll take your breath away…_

* * *

The heat wave came once a year and lasted for a few days at a time. And although the arrival of the summer heat wave was the only thing that kept Sakura going through the long grim months of Autumn, Winter and Spring, when the hottest day of the year finally arrived, she was invariably doing her best to find a fridge big enough to crawl inside. The only one in the village who had air conditioning was Tsunade, and she played up to her role as evil tyrant by barring all non-essential personnel from entering her building. Of course, it was either this or put up with the entire population of Konoha flopping throughout the hokage tower like a plague of lazy cats. 

The hospital had air conditioning, but Sakura wasn't needed there, and the last thing she wanted to do was volunteer to work just for a little bit of cold air. Besides, she had a tan to work on.

"Sky."

"No."

"Skirt?"

"Nope."

"Um… slide?"

"No."

Ino's hand hit the roof tiles beneath her in an exasperated motion. "I don't know," she grumbled, her face shining with perspiration beneath the strong sun.

"Do you give up?" Sakura asked around the Popsicle in her mouth.

Ino hated admitting defeat, especially to Sakura of all people, but the heat was clearly making her apathetic to the fact. "Go on. What is it?"

Sakura grinned and pointed towards the bright point of light in the sky. "Sun."

There was a general cry of outrage and 'boo!' at this from the girls around her, and Ino rolled away in sheer disgust. Sakura couldn't have cared less. She was gently roasting beneath the hot sky, listening to the sounds of hundreds of people moving about on the street below. She didn't understand why they were all so busy and active on such an unbearably hot day – the most she felt like doing was soaking up the light on this roof and expending as little energy as possible.

Tenten stuck up her hand. "Ice cream," she requested.

"Hang on," Sakura sat up and began rummaging through the pile of clothes that covered the cooling bag beside her. She withdrew a pink Popsicle and tossed it to Tenten who caught it without even opening her eyes.

Sakura lay back down, tugging at the hem of her shorts and sports bra to make sure she wasn't burning. Satisfied, she relaxed into another stupor.

"I spy," Ino began, "something beginning with… S."

"Sun." Sakura guessed.

"Sasuke," Tenten tried.

"Sandal," Hinata joined in.

Ino smiled lazily. "Nope. Much better than that."

"What?" Sakura skewed her a sideways look.

"Shirtless Sai."

All four girls promptly lifted their heads and eyeballed the approaching boy.

As was usually the case on hot days, a lot of men chose to go without shirts. Sai had been doing his best in recent years to catch on to more casual social habits, and this appeared to be his latest attempt. And not a bad attempt at that. Ino was drooling. Tenten swallowed. Hinata squeaked and turned away – no doubt this sight was quite pornographic in her book.

Sakura smirked and lifted a hand to point lazily at him. "Nice tanlines," she told him.

Well that's what one got for wearing half a top all year round.

He smiled at her, fake, but not forced. "I'm looking for Kakashi," he said, holding up a scroll. "Tsunade's got a mission for him."

At the mere mention of that name, Sakura's smile faded away and she looked away.

Tenten just shrugged; she didn't know or care where Kakashi was. But Ino was keen to help, even if Hinata and Sakura were doing their best to avoid looking at Sai. "Kakashi?" She tapped her lip thoughtfully. "I guess he'd be down by the training grounds with the genins, right? I'm going down there later – maybe I can take it to him?"

"No!" Sakura sat up promptly and snatched the scroll from Sai. "_I'll_ take it to him."

Sai looked lost. "But, uh, I'm meant to hand it to him personally or else-"

"What gives, Forehead?" Ino demanded, scowling at Sakura.

"You only want to take it to him so you have an excuse to grope him or whatever," Sakura snapped, tucking the scroll beneath her clothes. "Mission scrolls need to be treated with more reverence and respect than that, Ino." She looked hotly at Sai. "What are you still doing here?"

He sighed and shuffled away.

Sakura lay back down, but Ino was still glaring at her in annoyance. "Since when did you get fussy about who I'm allowed to talk to?" she demanded.

"Since you started crushing on my _teacher_," Sakura shot back. "Come on, Ino. Have _some_ boundaries. Why do you have to go panting after everything with a dick? You're only making yourself look like a total tramp."

Ino gasped, offended. "Alright, _virgin!"_ she said scornfully. "Take it easy."

"Don't call me that!" Sakura shot upright again.

"Easy girls," Tenten crooned half-heartedly.

"Why not? It's true." Ino shrugged. "You _are _a virgin."

"You don't have to make it sound like an insult," Sakura growled. "It's not something to be ashamed of. And it's not like I'm the only virgin in Konoha. I bet Tenten's a virgin."

Tenten cracked her eyes open briefly. "No way…"

"Well," Sakura looked to Hinata, who had only just begun to relax since Sai had disappeared. "Then Hinata-"

"No." The meek girl shook her head, blushing hard.

This drew an interested look from the other three girls. Hinata's face turned a few shades darker. "It was a long time ago," she whispered.

"Unbelievable," Sakura murmured, falling back onto the tiles. "I _am_ the only virgin left in Konoha…"

"Because you're a prude, Sakura," Ino told her, matter-of-factly.

"I am _not _a prude," Sakura retorted bitterly.

"Ok, I'll take it back if you give me that scroll," Ino said, batting her eyelashes.

"No." Sakura folded her arms.

"Oh, you're boring." Ino sighed and lay back down. Normally this kind of debate would have boiled over into a full on fight by now, but it was simply too hot to argue.

Grateful for the lethargic mood, Sakura ran a sticky hand through her hair. "Since when did you start having the hots for Kakashi-sensei then?" she asked, trying to sound bored and uninterested.

"Oh, come on, Sakura," Ino drawled. "If you haven't noticed, you had the coolest man in the world as your teacher. All that mask stuff? Classic. You can't beat that for enigmatic."

"And he has nice arms," Tenten added.

"And shoulders," Hinata sighed.

"And abs," Tenten again.

"And _ass_!" Ino crowed. "Don't tell me you haven't noticed."

Sakura's face burned. "You're terrible. All three of you."

But Ino only shrugged. "Whatever. Boys are nice, Sakura, but they don't compare with a mature man in his prime. Sometimes you just get tired of all the premature ejaculations and get in the mood for real experience. Someone who _knows _his way around a woman."

That kind of talk brought a fair few risqué images into her mind. Most involving Kakashi finding his way around _her_ body. Sakura bowed her head, hoping her hair could cover the worst of her blush. "Don't be lewd, Ino."

Suddenly Ino sat up, annoyed. "You know what your problem is, Sakura? You may be Tsunade's legacy and you may be able to kick our butts one-on-one, but you need to grow up a little. And I don't mean physically – although your tits are really pathetic – I mean mentally. Emotionally. So Sasuke disappointed you. Well, guess what, he disappointed a lot of other girls too, including me. Get over it and find yourself a guy, for god's sake."

Sakura didn't want to hear anymore of this. "I'm going to find Kakashi-sensei." She began to pull her skirt on over her shorts.

"Ah – no – you can't find that guy – I've already claimed dibs on him!" Ino protested.

"Dream on, Ino-pig!" Sakura snapped.

"She's right," Tenten piped up. "You don't have a chance. I doubt anyone does. That man is only interested in two things. Dirty literature and flower arranging."

"Eh?" Both Sakura and Ino looked sharply at her.

"His apartment is down my way. I walk past it every morning," Tenten said, shrugging. "Have you seen his window box? It's lovely."

"How sweet!" Hinata chirped.

Ino wrinkled her nose. "Ooh. I've kinda gone off him now."

"Typical," Sakura snorted. She didn't bother putting her red vest back on, simply opting for rolling it up and stuffing it into her hip pouch. After she'd pulled her boots on, she stood up and began bouncing the scroll in her hand as she glowered down at Ino. "And by the way, I could _so _find myself a guy any time I wanted. The opportunity just hasn't come up so far."

Ino laughed out loud. "Right, right," she said. "So you don't notice how men's eyes always seem to follow you wherever you go? Jeez, you're so slow. I hate girls like you – who don't even know what they've got. And look! You're planning to go off wearing that sports bra, aren't you? Not even an _inkling_ of what kind of attention that could bring."

Sakura looked down at her black bra. It was the one she normally wore. Quite conservative, cutting off with a thick elastic band a few inches below flattened breasts. It was normally covered by her mesh shirt, but she'd forgone that today since fishnet tanlines weren't quite the rage just yet. "What?" she asked. Not getting it.

"You might as well go around naked – you'll attract the same kind of attention," Ino pointed out, flexing her wrists.

"What!" Sakura gaped at her. "But I'm not showing anything – it's perfectly decent."

"Just don't sit in any drafts, ok?" Ino sighed. "Otherwise you'll be showing a whole lot more than you expect."

"Unless a blizzard suddenly blows over, I think I'll be ok," Sakura responded tartly, stooping down to tug the last Popsicle from the bag. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a message to pass on."

It had been exactly seven days since Sakura had parted ways with Kakashi outside of Tsunade's tower. Things had pretty much slid back into the way they'd been before – with only the occasional glimpse of the white-haired jonin to stymie her curiosity. Only this time it was worse. When she didn't see him, she thought about him constantly, wallowing in regret and self-loathing and utter confusion. When she _did_ see him, there was a fierce leap in her chest of excitement, usually followed by a wave of dismay when he either didn't notice her, or simply uttered a soft 'yo' before moving on without bothering to stop. Then the regret, self-loathing and confusion returned.

It had bothered her before, when she'd been worried that her former teacher just didn't like her enough to acknowledge her beyond the odd sporadic, absentminded greeting. Now it just hurt. A lot.

She'd been looking for an excuse to reach out to him again. Without a mission to bring them together, it was difficult to approach him. To talk to him without official business to back her up was to basically admit that she simply wanted his company. Sakura didn't think she was brave enough to give that kind of impression. But with a mission scroll in her hand, she had the perfect reason to see him. No strings attached. No reason to admit any other motive. She felt safe.

It was close to lunch time, so Sakura decided her best bet would be the food district. Restaurants, tea houses and takeaways swarmed with overheated civilians and ninjas. Just like Sai, a lot of young men were enjoying the day without shirts. Sakura appreciated the sight quite innocently. She enjoyed a nicely toned pair of pectorals as much as the next girl.

Then she thought about what Ino had said, and suddenly she felt a little self-conscious. She _did_ look at men. Did they look at her?

She moved through the crowds a little more warily, watching the eyes of those around her. Almost straight away she spotted a brown-haired ninja coming towards her from the opposite direction. Just a stranger, nothing spectacular about him. His gaze crossed hers, as two strangers gazes might, and then quite promptly his eyes dropped to her chest.

Sakura almost gasped in outrage. The urge to slap him as he passed by with an impassive face was surprisingly strong. But why bother? The moment he was past her, he'd probably forgotten all about her.

Maybe this happened a lot and Sakura just hadn't been aware of it? She'd only noticed because Ino had mentioned it…

Thoroughly shaken, Sakura decided to concentrate on her task. But the more she looked around, the more she noticed people looking at her. And not just men… but girls too. Although their expressions tended to lean towards the kind of face Ino made when she saw a girl making moves on a boy she liked. A stony kind of _'that bitch!' _expression.

Sakura was beginning to realize she wasn't all that popular.

She spotted Chouji enjoying a bowl of ramen in one of the nearby booths and gratefully dived out of the street and bumped against the counter next to him, grateful to see a familiar face. "Hey!" she greeted brightly. "You seen Kakashi-sensei?"

He nodded, sucking up a long ribbon of noodles. "He was heading to the training pitches with his team about two hours ago."

"Thanks!" She thumped his armor plated shoulder amicably and headed off in the direction of the training grounds, hoping that he would still be there. His favorite area was number 3 – it had been the one he'd always used for Team Seven, so he probably still used it.

But when Sakura arrived, the only people there were Sasuke and Naruto.

They were both stood atop two of the three posts near the cenotaph memorial. Each seemed to be attempting to kick the other off their perch, but judging by the sniggers and grins, it was a friendly contest.

"Hey, guys," she waved, disappointed.

"Hey, Sakura-chan!" Naruto cheered happily, waving at her despite the fact Sasuke was calmly holding his ankle at chin-height. "It's good you're here – Sasuke wanted to ask you something-_oomph!_"

Sasuke abruptly pushed him off the post.

Sakura blinked up at him expectantly. "You wanted to ask something?" she echoed.

But his lips were firmly shut and he was looking away peevishly… or possibly he was a little embarrassed. It would probably take an enemy torturer to get whatever it was out of him. But who needed enemies when you had friends like Naruto?

"The chunin exam is coming up," the blond said happily from his position sprawled across the ground. "He wants you to nominate him."

Immediately Sakura burst out in a fit of laughter, one that rose from her belly and made her double over. The giggles subside quite sharply when she caught Sasuke's fierce glare, at which she sobered instantly. "Sorry," she said quickly, before descending into another bout of sniggers. "Oh, come on! It's funny!"

"I'll just ask Kakashi, shall I?" he rebuked, though his glare had softened a little. It seemed he was less sensitive about the issue now that he knew she was only laughing at the irony of his power outstripping hers by miles, yet he had to answer to her.

"Don't worry, I'll sort it out," she said, smothering the sniggers with her hand. "Later. But I need to find Kakashi right now. Have you seen him?"

Naruto rolled to his feet, looking shrewd and unhappy. "Why?" he asked bluntly.

She brandished the scroll. "I'm delivering a mission."

Naruto grunted, clasping his hands behind his head. "He came by here earlier, but since we were here he said he'd use training ground four."

"Thanks," Sakura said, beaming. "I'll see you guys later."

"You have to nominate me today," Sasuke called after her. "The exam is next week."

"Hey, don't get pushy with her," Naruto warned him. "She might chop off your balls."

He was swiftly pelted with a rock for that comment.

Training ground 4 was more commonly referred to as the 'Water Field' for reasons that quickly became clear upon arriving there. It was essentially just a rather large fenced off lake that was dotted with a few small islands. Most genins were often taken there to practice their chakra control techniques with the usual walking on water exercise, and most genins often returned half drowned.

As Sakura entered through the gates she knew that this was obviously what Kakashi had had in mind, as she heard distant yells and splashes drifting across the vast body of water. The disturbance seemed to be taking place on the other side of the main island, which was probably where Kakashi and his team were. A series of posts protruded from the water, acting as stepping stones and guiding the way toward the island for ninja newbies who had yet to master their own chakra.

Sakura simply alighted the water and strode on without aid. If she wasn't a master of chakra, she was nothing.

When she rounded the small island, she wasn't all that surprised by what she found. Three kids, all in various stages of drowning with their teacher sitting on the island's bank, reading. Kakashi probably sensed her arrival first, but it was the little blonde girl who acknowledged her. "Hey! It's that kunoichi who chopped off that guy's bits! Hi, Sakura-sensei!"

Respect! Sakura would have wept over the beauty of the moment and in celebration of youth and enthusiasm… had she been Gai. She settled for just smiling and waving awkwardly. The two boys looked less keen to see her, and they quickly sank lower into the water, probably quite concerned about their own 'bits'.

"Oh, Sakura-chan!" Kakashi gave her a wave and a smile. "What are you doing here? Are you here to train too? I would have thought your chakra control was near perfect."

He addressed her like a stranger - or worse, like an adult addressing a child. Maybe the events of their mission were out of his mind now, and she was back to being listed as 'casual acquaintance' in his little black book?

"No," she said coolly. "You have a mission, direct from Tsunade." She alighted the island and stopped beside him, scroll held out.

"Oh?" He looked a little surprised. "I thought Anbu gave these out."

"Well… yeah… but they're a little tied down with work. It's the weather, you see." No way was she telling him that she'd snatched the scroll off Sai. He'd see through that in an instant.

But even with her rock-solid excuse, he gave her a knowing look and a nod. "Ah. I see."

Damn him…

He took the scroll from her, his warm fingers crossing over hers as he grasped it. Sakura whipped her hand back as if she'd been scorched, although Kakashi didn't seem to notice. He calmly broke the seal and stretched the scroll out to inspect.

As he held it up to the strong light and squinted at it, his students began making impatient noises. "Kakashi-sensei," the loud boy was wailing. "I'm cold and wet and hungry…"

"Isn't it lunch time yet?" the girl asked.

"Can we go to lunch?" called the loud boy.

The quiet boy didn't say much, but the expression on his face matched his teammates'.

"Sure, sure, lunch is good…" Kakashi muttered distractedly. A small chorus of cheers rose from the kids and they quickly began swimming back to shore, talking excitedly about what they'd get to eat.

Sakura looked back down at Kakashi in time to see him form a fire seal with his hands, the scroll trapped between his extended index fingers. With a innocuous puff of smoke, the scroll dissolved into ash and dusted his lap which he brushed off as he stood. She began to feel awkward just standing there beside him. "Well, I'll be going then," she announced with forced airiness and a cheap smile. She stepped out onto the water with the intent of heading back to shore, but Kakashi's voice made her pause.

"Did you really just come all this way to drop off a scroll?" he asked lightly, stretching his arms above his head.

_Play it cool,_ she told herself. "Actually, I was on my way down here anyway," she said easily. "Tsunade recommended I tone up my chakra control a little. It's always good to keep yourself in check when other people's lives are in your hands. But if you're busy with the genin-"

"Not anymore," he cut in pleasantly, sweeping a hand out towards the vast waters. "Please, don't let me keep you."

Shit… she didn't want to train. Not in _this _weather . She just wanted to go back to the roof of the jonin headquarters and point at all the buff boys walking past with Ino and the others.

Sakura began looking wistfully back in the direction she'd come. "No, I should probably be going. Busy day, and all." She didn't want to stick around where she wasn't wanted. If he wanted to treat her like a stranger, that was fine. But she planned to play it straight back to him.

This had obviously been a mistake. She'd been a fool to think that there could be anything between her and this man. He was way out of her league in so many ways.

Feeling a bitter remorse twist in her stomach, Sakura turned and began padding away across the water.

"I forgot, I never did teach you how to walk water."

Sakura looked back at him patiently. "I think I have that figured out by now, Kakashi-sensei," she said, bouncing her heels lightly on the water to show him how well she was _not _sinking.

"Tsunade taught you this, I suppose?" He stepped out onto the water, one hand in his pocket, the other holding his book open before him.

"Actually, Shizune taught me most of the basics," she told him with a shrug. "Tsunade-shishou was too busy to be teaching me those kinds of things, so she mostly passed me around the other jonins at the start of the training until I was up to standard."

"Yes, I seem to recall them asking me if I could help out with some of the fundamentals," Kakashi said vaguely.

Sakura frowned. She'd had a handful of different instructors during the early days of her training to bring her basics up to scratch, but none of them had been Kakashi. "But you…"

"Declined? Yeah." He gave her an unconcerned shrug. "There are better teachers than me out there, Sakura. I figured I'd just be holding you back."

But Sakura didn't know whether to believe that. How much did she want to bet that back then he simply hadn't thought she was worth the time of day? The notion that the great copy ninja had worried about holding _her _back was ridiculous.

"I see," she said, her jaw tightening as she attempted to control her temper and keep her emotions on the inside. Rule of engagement, number twenty-five: A shinobi must hide their feelings at all times. Overly emotional ninjas always lost (unless your name was Uzumaki), and there was no way she was losing this battle. "Yes, I suppose you're right. Shizune was quite a good instructor. She explained things quite well… and didn't slack off and leave me to explain it to myself while she read a book."

Kakashi's partially visible face was still pleasant, but she had the feeling that it was as fixed and phony as her own. They may have been walking on water, but they could both feel the eggshells.

"Shizune-san is a clever woman," he conceded. "I imagine she taught you many useful techniques."

"A few," Sakura tilted her head, hands behind her back. "Here mostly. Although the Miniature Tsunami was my favorite move."

"I'm not familiar with that one."

That was because Sakura had just made it up. "Oh," she shrugged nonchantly. "It goes something like… _this_."

Pulling back her foot, Sakura kicked the surface of lake the way one might scuff their foot across the ground. She applied a little chakra, pulling the water in the wake of her boot to send a sizeable cascade of water arcing toward Kakashi.

If Sakura had had more than five seconds to dwell on it, she might have decided not to do it. It was silly and immature, but right at that moment if felt like the most satisfying act in the world.

And it had to be said that Kakashi had incredibly selective evasion. The man had never been blindsided by a kunai, _ever, _but he frequently managed to get knocked upside the head by shoes, rocks, books, erasers, pens, and now small tidal waves. Why he didn't dodge, Sakura didn't know. Perhaps he was only ever alert to objects thrown with dangerous intent? (Although she had to admit that there had been quite a bit of malicious feeling behind this attack.) But then, perhaps he just didn't feel like dodging?

A great deal of water hit the man full in the face, making him flinch back ever so slightly as if Sakura had simply spat in his eye. He was half-drenched, though he didn't seem too concerned as he slowly lifted a hand to wipe the moisture away from his uncovered eye and pulled down his sopping mask. Sakura recoiled, almost surprised to see he looked as rugged and handsome as the last time she'd seen him barefaced. He didn't look upset, but from the way he was looking mournfully at the lily pad draped over his wet book he was probably feeling it.

Common sense reasserted itself in Sakura's brain, but by then it was ten seconds too late. _Whoops_, she thought. She really needed to control her temper better. And she'd been doing _so_ well too…

She blamed the weather.

"Thanks, Sakura…" he muttered, somehow making those two lightly delivered words drip with pure sarcasm.

"Thought you might appreciate it, it being so hot and all," she chortled. "I'd be grateful for someone being so thoughtful for me."

Too late, she realized what she might have just invited. Kakashi raised an eyebrow and nodded, as if considering her words. "Is that so?" He calmly began to pull off his wet gloves, book stashed under his arm. Sakura watched his fingers, paranoid he was about to pull a dirty trick on her and return the favor –

And there! A water seal.

Before Sakura could even contemplate running for the hills, she felt the surface of the lake dip dramatically below her, as if someone had just sucked a great lump of water away. A faint hiss behind her warned her of her impending doom, and without turning she knew what was towering over her shoulders.

_Splash!_

A flood of water suddenly dropped on Sakura's head, as if she'd just stepped under a waterfall. Her mouth opened in a startled cry, but she could do little more than throw out her arms and wait for the icy flood to end. When it finally did, she was left shaking and shivering in the middle of the rippling lake, hair plastered pitifully to her neck and skirt clinging tenaciously to the same contours as her shorts. A faint tingling beneath her sports bra warned her that Ino's premonition had come true, and she quickly wrapped her arms over her chest, feigning cold in an attempt to keep Kakashi's eyes from being drawn to her obvious problem.

Kakashi smiled. Water dripped off the end of his nose. "Much better. Now we're both lovely and cool, so why don't we both just-"

He didn't get to finish his suggestion, because right then Sakura's foot slammed hard against the water with such force that the resounding clap fractured and echoed around the whole training ground. The water cracked apart, like an invisible knife had sliced through butter, creating a wide gash that rushed at Kakashi like a streak of lightening.

The rug was figuratively pulled from under his feet as the water disappeared from beneath him. He slipped down into the crack she'd created, along with a fairly startled terrapin. "Uh-!" was all he managed to say before the water closed seamlessly over his head.

_Now _she was in for it, she thought belatedly. It would probably wise to start making her escape…

She was just beginning to tiptoe back toward the gates when her ankle caught on something. Kakashi's hand, to be precise. A second hand quickly appeared to join the first in catching her other foot in a tight grip. Sakura wobbled preciously for a moment, then a sudden jerk of momentum pulled her down into the freezing water.

Outraged, the lashed out at her watery attacker, but trying to punch someone underwater was like punching in slow motion. Quite useless. Kakashi blocked her small fists with his open palms and gently shunted her towards the surface again. She came up spluttering and coughing – sounds which intensified the moment Kakashi came up beside her. She had every intention of making him feel guilty. "Trying to drown me?" she rasped.

He stayed submerged up to his nose for a moment before lifting his chin to squirt a mouthful of water dead between her eyes. Sakura could almost hear the aneurysm popping in the back of her brain. "I was about to ask you the same thing," he said cheerfully. "You know, this water tastes seriously bad…"

Sakura quietly smoldered in the water as he pulled himself back onto the surface of the water and reached down to offer her a hand. When she was back on her feet, he released her to shake the water from his hair and snap it off his warms with jerks of his hands. "Well, that was fun," he told her pleasantly, completely oblivious to her baleful glare.

Sakura couldn't understand it. Every word out of his beautiful mouth made her want to snap his pretty face in half. He still spoke to her as if someone had hit the reset button on their relationship and he was back to treating her like a vaguely estranged student, though no one had remembered to tell Sakura about it. She hated his polite, airy tone; the one he used with virtually all his passing acquaintances. It made her feel snubbed. As if now that the weird and confusing mission was over with, he had pushed her back into the same slot she'd been in before even though she was now holding him up on a pedestal. Was she clinging to a false hope? Was she really as young and stupid as she felt right then?

Wringing the moisture from her skirt, Sakura straightened and pushed her hair back. "I'm going," she informed him shortly, and turned to squelch her way across the lake.

"Seems a shame," Kakashi called after her, standing like a flamingo to drain the water from his sandal. "You seem to be in the mood to spar, so how about it? You wanted to train, didn't you?"

He'd done it twice now. Each time she tried to leave, he called her back with a question. He was stalling her. Why? Sakura frowned as she looked back at him. "It's too hot to spar," she said.

"You seem cool enough." Just for a moment - an incredibly brief second – she thought his gaze slipped below her neck. It was hard to be sure at this distance, but there was a good chance his remark had held a sly insinuation, and she didn't need to look down to know that her nipples were noticeably prominent against her sports bra, sensitized as they were by the cold water.

Blushing heavily and drawing her arms across her chest, Sakura regarded him stiffly. "I can't spar with you. It's not fair – you have the sharingan," she pointed out hotly.

"And you have fists that can knock the head off my shoulders," he said with an easy shrug. "I promise not to use mine if you don't use yours."

That sounded reasonable…

"Alright, you're on."

She unsnapped her pouch and donned her vest and gloves. But while she was busy putting clothes on, Kakashi was busy taking them _off_. She tried not to let her eyes linger on his remarkable physique as he shrugged out of his flak vest and long-sleeved shirt and moved to hang them on some handy branches to dry. She tried not to notice the lean muscles of his arms clenching as he reached up to hang the clothes. She tried not to notice how flat and taut his stomach was beneath his vest or how strong his shoulders looked.

Again with the walking hazard business! This guy needed to come with flashing orange lights…

He trudged back to the middle of the lake to stand opposite her, hands in pockets. "Are you ready?" he asked.

She raised her fists in answer.

"Good." And then in a flicker of movement, he was gone.

Sakura knew the only chance she had of holding her own against this man was to draw on all the years experience she had fighting alongside him. She'd watched him. She knew his weaknesses and his strengths and she knew for a fact that he loved to strike from below…

Which meant he would anticipate her deduction and strike from above. Sakura threw herself back as she felt a shadow fall over her, just in time for Kakashi to smash down against the water where she'd been standing. The impact rocked the lake, sending out violent waves that almost knocked her over. Almost. She saw he was open and flew forward to aim a kick at his back.

But when her foot went right through him and he exploded in a gush of smoke of mist, she knew she'd been had. A clone. And now _she _was the one who was open.

Too late she saw the figure closing in on her right. She raised an arm to block the blow coming her way, automatically channeling some chakra into her arm to deflect most of the impact. It was only a little… he shouldn't have noticed…

"Sakura, _no_ monstrous strength," he reminded, stepping back and rubbing his hand.

"It's not fair, though!" she protested. "You're stronger than me."

"So? We all have our strengths and weaknesses. You have better flexibility and lighter body mass. Use it."

_Easy for him to say_, Sakura thought as she gritted her teeth in annoyance.

As her clothes dried off, the hot day began to sink into her skin again, tiring her out. Her blocks grew sloppy and her kicks fell short. Holding back was always much harder than fighting all out. When instinct told her to hit that kunai straight between his eyes, irritating common sense reminded her she might get in trouble for this and had to change her aim.

Kakashi seemed at ease with the heat. He was hardly even sweating, and his attacks came at her as fast as ever. Sakura tried to unhinge him with a genjutsu, but either she was too tired to maintain it or Kakashi had anticipated it, since he saw through the trick within ten seconds and broke out in the next five.

Unable to hit him with any ninjutsu, she attempted to use her fists again. She wished she had Shikamaru's talent with shadows… or Naruto's copious amount of stamina… or even Ino's ability to possess another's mind. Boy, that last one would be useful. If she could get into Kakashi's head, what would she find there? Various references to Icha Icha, no doubt. Maybe a few of the ninja textbooks he'd swallowed as a kid. His feelings for her? What were they exactly? What did he feel when he looked at her? Did his heart ache like hers did whenever their eyes met?

"Sakura, pay attention."

"Wha…?"

Sakura's legs were suddenly swept out from underneath her and she found herself laid out on the water, staring up at an incredibly blue sky. She didn't have the energy or will to get back up. When Kakashi's head appeared above her, casting a shadow across her face, she just closed her eyes.

"Up," he commanded.

So cool and uncaring.

"Do you think… do you think that maybe people would be able to get on a little easier if we could all read minds?" she asked ponderously, feeling water seeping back into her clothes. "Because then we'd all know what to say?"

The shadow left her face and Sakura opened her eyes to see Kakashi standing by her hip, hands in pockets and staring at the fish underfoot. "No," he said simply. "It would probably just create a lot more wars if we all knew what we were _really_ thinking."

"So what are you really thinking?" she asked quietly. "Right now?"

Kakashi was silent for a moment. "I'm wondering when _Icha Icha Ransom_ will be coming out. Jiraiya-sama promised it would be some time this year… but…" He scratched his cheek absently. "Why? What are you thinking?"

She was thinking about how strong and steady the hand rubbing his face was and how much she wished it would touch her… "I'm thinking about Sasuke's chunin exam coming up," she lied. "I hope he passes."

"Is that what you're really thinking about?" he said, giving her a hooded glance.

"Were you really thinking about books?" she rebutted.

Kakashi sighed and rolled his shoulders. "Maybe we should leave it here? I have a meeting to prepare for," he said, walking back towards the island where he'd left his clothes.

"Yeah, go on, walk away from me," Sakura grumbled. "You're especially good at that, Kakashi-sensei…"

She hadn't meant for him to overhear her. And when he stopped and stood still, her blood ran cold and she almost sank into the water in sheer mortification. Slowly, he turned to her. Sakura looked away.

"You want to keep going?" he asked evenly.

Sakura rolled to her feet and shook the water from her hair with a hand. "Why bother?" she asked miserably. "I'm not a good opponent. I'm not fast like Sasuke or energetic like Naruto. All I have is my strength, and if I don't have that… what use am I?" She yanked off her gloves, trying not to meet his eye. "I'm sorry for taking up your time. I'd better go."

"Slow, tired _and _a quitter?" Kakashi mused aloud. "If I'd known you'd turn out so lame, I wouldn't have passed you."

Much to her surprise, Sakura's anger didn't rise to the bait. She knew it was the type of thing Kakashi would say to encourage a student to do better, but she was more hurt than anything. Hurt that he'd use a lame tactic on her and expect her to react like one of his genins.

"What reason do I have to stay?" she asked him in quiet bewilderment. "It's not like you even like me that much." If he really did care about her in any way, he could have approached her at least once after their mission together. But he hadn't. So he didn't.

No sooner were the words spilt from her lips than she noticed Kakashi's face harden imperceptibly. His expression remained impassive as ever, but suddenly there was something a little intense about the downward quirk of his mouth and his own dark eye. He seemed to stare straight at her and through to the trees behind her.

"Fight me," he said softly.

"Don't take pity on me," she snapped. "I'm not pathetic enough to deserve that, thanks."

He shook his head once. "Just fight me."

So she fought him.

Every fist she threw was blocked by an arm and every kick by a hand. He never once raised an offence, simply allowing himself to be pushed back by her barrage of attacks. Sakura didn't like it. He wasn't fighting back, and the range of their fight was too close. Both were invading each other's personal space, and the intensity of his gaze was unnerving. It was like he knew something that she didn't, and she was missing the point entirely.

That penetrating stare angered her. She pushed harder, feigning a punch and landing a kick square in his ribs. Kakashi staggered back, caught by surprise at her sudden viciousness.

"I _said_, don't pity me!" she hissed. "Don't go easy on me, Kakashi-sensei!"

Before he could even recover, she hit him again, spinning his shoulder back. Another hard smack sent him reeling into the shallows near the island. He tripped over roots protruding from the water and landed flat on his back on the inclining embankment, feet still submerged in the lake. Sakura followed him down, straddling his belly to fist her hands in mask for lack of proper lapels.

She didn't know what she wanted to do with him there. She wanted to shake him till his brain fell out and scream at him for not taking her seriously. She wanted to cry and weep into his chest because if he didn't want to like her, he could at least hate her. She feared his indifference. But most of all, she realized, as she looked down at him beneath her, breathing as hard as she was with a bruised cheekbone and a split lip… she just wanted to kiss him. Kiss him like he'd kissed her back in Matsura's gallery with his hand inside her yukata and squeezing her bottom. She wanted that now.

Why wasn't he saying anything? He just stared at her silently, as if there was nothing to talk about. He didn't seem to care that she was on top of him, and he certainly made no moves to push her away. But his bleeding lip and purple cheek made her feel guilty. She'd unleashed a little of her chakra on him in her anger and done more damage that she'd expected.

The urge to throttle him did not fade, but it could wait for now. Instead she raised her hand and pressed it against his warm cheek, letting her chakra bleed into his skin to heal the injury beneath. It only took a few seconds, and when she was done she moved her fingers to his lips, touching them softly as she sealed the thin cut.

Even after she'd healed him, she didn't removed her fingers. She was entranced by their softness, and her thumb seemed inclined to keep smoothing across his lower lip, pretending to brush away the residual blood.

Why didn't he stop her? Why did he let these things happen if he didn't…?

Kakashi gently took her wrist and pushed it away, though he didn't let go. With his thumb pressed against her pulse he could no doubt feel how fast her heart was racing. Sakura wanted to say something, but she couldn't think of anything that would fit in this kind of situation.

Then he was shifting – pushing her back and rolling her over until she was the one underneath him and he was braced over her – powerful and steady. He kept her gaze captive as he carefully nudged her thighs apart and settled his weight between them. She thought it should have been uncomfortable, but it seemed like her body had been made to accommodate his like this. Her curves met his angles and welcomed them. But only one thing occurred to her at that moment.

He had an erection.

Sakura's breath caught in her throat and she squirmed in shock, inadvertently pressing closer. Kakashi inhaled sharply and tightened his hold on her wrist to near bruising force, stilling her movements. Stretched out beneath him and pinned so completely was an experience like no other. She felt vulnerable and exposed. And she liked it.

No… loved it.

"You want me…" she whispered, eyes wide and barely audible.

Kakashi's face was calm. "Does that scare you?"

"A little," she answered honestly. It reminded her of a much more frightening time when Matsura had had her pinned to the bed in the inn. But Kakashi wasn't to know that, and besides, this was a more pleasurable experience by far.

The feel of his hard length pressed against the junction of her thighs did amazing things to her insides. A stampede of butterflies flocked through her stomach, inciting fear and excitement all at once. She could feel herself catching fire and softening, and she loved it when his head bent and fanned his breath across her throat. A small strained noise escaped his lips and he suddenly pushed against her, dragging an answering groan straight from Sakura's throat as fire leapt through her veins. Her breathing was out of control – her chest heaving. She had to have more of that delicious feeling one way or another.

Shifting beneath him, she pressed up to meet his hips more tightly and wrapped a leg around him. Another strained sound pressed against her throat and Kakashi quickly gripped her hip tightly, holding her down and keeping her still.

When he spoke into her ear, his voice was unusually low and rough. "Sakura… it's not because I don't want to. It's because I can't. I can't… I really can't."

He lifted off her, taking the sweet pleasure with him. Sakura wanted to protest and drag him back, but her mind was in a state of static shock. She sat up and watched him wade into the cold water of the lake. "It would be best if you go now," he said to her over his shoulder. "You have stuff to do, remember?"

"Right… right."

With her mind still in no fit state to form logical or rational thought, let alone argument, she stood and began to walk away on legs made of rubber. The sounds of Kakashi repeatedly attempting to drown himself accompanied her out of the training grounds.

* * *

TBC 


	13. In which love is confessed

* * *

_Walking back to you_

_Is the hardest thing that_

_I can do._

* * *

It was poetic injustice that just around the same time the heat wave was finally beginning to let up, half of the village, including Sakura, had to migrate to the desert in preparation for this year's chunin exams. 

Ok, half the village was a little bit of an exaggeration, but there was still certainly a lot of people joining Tsunade's entourage at the village gates. Sakura was required to go to Suna as both Tsunade's apprentice and a medic. Everyone else consisted of ANBU guards, chunin examiners, genin students and their teachers and a large group of other people Sakura didn't recognize but suspected were just coming along for a free holiday.

Sakura had, at Sasuke's request, nominated him for the exams, which was the reason why he was plodding sullenly along beside her with an umbrella shielding his fair skin from the razing sun. The looks on the other jonins' faces had been priceless the moment she had stepped up and told Tsunade who she was nominating. Neji had even gone as far as retracting the nominations of his students in the face of Sasuke's entrance into the exam.

Kakashi had stuck by his decision though, nominating all his students save for the girl, and had done this without so much as a single glance in Sakura's direction from the moment he had entered the meeting to the second he'd walked out the door again. Even now she had a feeling he was studiously avoiding her, keeping to the back of the moving procession with his two students and his nose buried in his book.

It was a tactic that, although she understood and somewhat appreciated, she also couldn't help but feel resentful of. He had quite effectively told her that nothing could happen between them, without actually explaining just why, and Sakura didn't quite know how to feel about this. Was it because he was not interested in a relationship with another human being in general, or was it just her? Was the reason he had avoided her since the incident in the Water Field because he found her so irresistible that he couldn't be around her without wanting to ravish her? Or was it that he just found his own attraction to her too repulsive to bear?

It was depressing. Sakura knew that any kind of relationship between them would be weird, taboo and unacceptable and that Kakashi was probably doing the right thing. But still… her inner romantic was lost and confused over the fact that the first man in her entire life to ever show any kind of real interest in _her _was going out of his way to avoid her.

She had suspected after the nominations meeting that it was probably just her imagination filling the silence between them with her own insecurities. But the day after, when he'd walked out of the jonin common room exactly ten seconds after she'd entered it, a heavy weight of realization settled hard over her shoulders. He had to be avoiding her. What else could have made him put that book away and stand to leave the moment he saw her out of the corner of his eye?

This _wasn't _the way romance worked!

In all the books she'd read, when a man and a woman grew attracted to one another, there was simply no force on earth that could stop them from being together – be it other people or simply their own inhibitions. Love _always _ruled supreme in the end. But clearly this kind of ending was just a fantasy. In real life, attraction made things awkward. It ruined friendships.

Although maybe this was only when the attraction happened between the wrong people…?

Sakura only realized she was holding her face in her hands and outright gurning when Naruto tapped her on the shoulder. "What's the matter? Are you getting heat stroke?"

"Should have brought an umbrella," Sasuke remarked. He seemed to be feeling especially combative that day as Tsunade had ordered him to be given another psychological profile exam the day before. He'd passed, but it hadn't exactly been with flying colors, hence his rather foul mood.

"It's not that, I was just thinking about something," Sakura said wearily, wiping sweat from her brow.

"Something," Naruto said mysteriously, "or _someone_?"

Sakura glared at him. Sasuke just looked confused. "What _are _you on about now, you imbecile?"

He probably meant that in the nicest possibly way, and luckily insults slid off Naruto's back much more easily these days. Besides, he couldn't pass up the opportunity to gloat about something Sasuke knew nothing about, despite Sakura's warning stare. "What, you don't know? Didn't she tell you she liked Kakashi-sensei? You knowin _that_ way?"

Sasuke's incredulous look moved from Naruto to Sakura. "What's he talking about?"

Sakura didn't answer, but the hard shove she gave Naruto said it all. When the blond picked himself up from the sand and rejoined them, he gave Sakura a dirty look as he shook sand grains from his hair. "Sasuke won't tell anyone, Sakura-chan. He's good at secrets." He looked at Sasuke. "She has a crush on Kakashi-sensei."

Sasuke pulled a mild face as if he'd just caught wind of an unpleasant smell. "Ew."

"What, 'ew'?" Sakura exploded, drawing to a dead stop. "Why is it so 'ew'!"

Sasuke halted with Naruto and looked back at her. "What is he, fifty? It's terrible."

Folding her arms, Sakura stormed past them, leaving them to scramble in her wake. "You know, that's just typical of you guys. You _know_ he's not that old! And why is it so wrong for me to like him when you're both allowed to go lusting after that woman we saw in that film last week. She must have been around thirty-five, but I didn't tell you it was gross! _Typical_ double-standards!"

"I didn't find her particularly attractive," Sasuke pointed out.

"Shock!" deadpanned Naruto.

"Yeah, well Naruto sure did," Sakura bit out. "His jaw was virtually on the floor when she took off her top and I don't see you having a go at him because of _her _age."

"That's different!" Naruto protested. "It's not like I'm ever going to get together with her."

"It's not like I'm ever going to get together with Kakashi-sensei, so what's the big deal?"

Perfectly annoyed with both her friends and not really understanding why or even wanting to understand, she marched away from them, weaving her way between the groups and pairs of other travelers to make her way toward Tsunade. The woman in question was walking along in the midst of several ANBU guards, severely hampered by her official Hokage robes and looking very pink in the face.

"Tsunade-shishou," she began. "How far is left till we reach Suna?"

"Oh, Sakura, you're like one of those annoying children who's always asking 'are we there yet?' Do you know how many people have asked that since we started off? I could kick them all."

Considering how nasty Tsunade's kicks could be, Sakura changed tact quickly. "Maybe we should take a break?"

"I like that idea," Tsunade said with a sigh, coming to a halt. "Fifteen minutes break. And someone get me Captain Tenzou," she said to the ANBU, "I want a nice cold fountain up here, _now_."

_Poor Yamato_, Sakura thought. Everyone liked to exploit his skills to the point of abuse. And Sakura was about to sneak off again when Tsunade caught her wrist. "I need someone to hand out the letters of induction to the genin. You don't look busy." And with that she produced a wad of slim scrolls from her robes and slapped them in Sakura's hands before dismissing her with a lazy flick.

Sakura chewed her lower lip anxiously. She was used to Tsunade fobbing all kinds of work off onto her when she didn't feel like doing it herself, and normally Sakura was only too pleased to be able to help.

Only, handing out scrolls to genin would undoubtedly mean she'd have to approach Kakashi's students, and by association, Kakashi himself.

There were fifteen scrolls for fifteen students, and Sakura meandered her way through the resting groups to locate them all – which was generally quite easy since the genin tended to be the smallest people there.

She gave scrolls to three of Shikamaru's students (and watched Shikamaru shy away from her in a must-protect-my-balls kind of way), two more to Gai's team, and one for Kurenai's student. She spotted Kakashi close-by, predictably too busy reading his book to have seen her, and tried to rally her nerves as she approached him and the two boys sitting in the sand at his feet.

"Letters of induction," she said pleasantly to the boys, bending down to pass them a scroll each. "Make sure you read them carefully. All you need to know about the exams is in there."

She straightened and chanced a look up at Kakashi, partly hoping that he had at least noticed her there.

But no. He turned the next page in his book and read on as if she was invisible and mute.

He probably didn't mean to hurt her, but Sakura couldn't deny the squeeze of pain in her chest at the blatant rejection. A lump rose swiftly in her throat and she turned and move away quickly before anyone realized she was struggling on the verge of tears.

Kakashi's students piped up like any insensitive child usually did, not aware that Sakura wasn't quite out of earshot. "Kakashi-sensei, did you fall out with your girlfriend?"

Sakura didn't stick around to hear any reply he might have made and stormed straight up to an ANBU whose mask she recognized. "Here, Sai," she said to him, thrusting the remaining scrolls into his arms. "Hand those out. Tsunade's orders."

"You're crying," he commented, sounding surprised. "Did you look in the mirror again?"

It wasn't the wisest thing anyone had ever said to her, and Sai had never been in her good books to begin with. So, without caring who saw and what they thought of her, she pulled back his mask on its elastic ties and then promptly let go, allowing it to smash back into face with a satisfying slap. She left him there, reeling in surprise and pain with an armful of scrolls he was attempting not to drop, and stalked back to where Sasuke and Naruto had sat down to slump in the shade of Sasuke's umbrella. They, like everyone else she passed, gave her weird looks.

"What's biting you?" Sasuke asked tactfully.

"_Nothing," _she ground out angrily, well aware that her bottom lip was trembling and her eyes were glassy. She sat down with her back to them so they wouldn't see.

How easily that man could affect her. He literally had to do nothing to upset her more than was reasonable. She glanced bitterly at him over her shoulder and was taken aback for a moment to see him similarly looking at her. He turned away the moment she caught him, but at least it made her feel incrementally better.

He couldn't ignore her as easily as he liked to think.

* * *

When they arrived at the gates of Suna, the kazekage himself was waiting for them with his two siblings and various members of his own entourage. And while the majority of the Konoha ninjas present regarded the young man warily, including Sakura, Naruto blithely went charging up to meet him in his typically exuberant manner. 

Luckily, Gaara was fairly used to his loud attitude and took it with a vague smile, which was the Gaara equivalent of a big manly hug and some ecstatic shoulder clapping.

It was Temari who showed the group from Konoha to the hotel where they would be staying, set in a different location than the groups from other villages to discourage cheating. Sakura couldn't help but wish she was already back home in her beloved green Konoha. Everything in Suna came in a million shades of beige and yellow, including the buildings and local plant life. Everything seemed to be half buried in sand and Sakura figured that the hotel would look just as sandy and decrepit on the inside as it did on the outside.

However, when they were shown indoors, Sakura was delighted to see not a speck of sand anywhere (save for the stuff they brought in with them). Everything was luxury carpet and sculpted limestone walls.

It was much better accommodation that Sakura had remembered receiving in Kiri the previous year.

But as was usually the case, Sasuke found something to complain about. "Typical. Villages always try to rub their hospitality in your face in an effort to outdo each other. Next year they'll be giving us our own hotel each. This is why I hate taking exams abroad. It's so pretentious."

It may have just been another aspect of inter-village rivalry, but Sakura found it to be one more enjoyable ones. Better to have people fighting over themselves to provide you with better accommodation than have them trying to cut your throat while you're sleeping.

"Don't worry Sasuke. You only have to fail one more time before the exam comes back to Konoha," Naruto informed him. Sasuke flicked sand at him in response.

Temari, by the check-in desk, gathered everyone's attention with an authoritative clap of her hands. Twenty years old and already a bit of a battle-axe. Sakura glanced at Shikamaru, finally understanding why he was probably doomed to marry her. She was _just_ like his mother.

"We've set aside fifty rooms for you," Temari announced. "You may choose your own amongst yourselves. In the mean time, please remember that we will not tolerate vandalism, cheating, trouble-making or excessive noise after eleven o'clock. The bars and restaurants are further down the road, just follow the east Tower. All foreign visitors get a twenty percent discount on food and drink, but I remind you also that curfew begins at twelve."

There was a slight murmur of disappointment from the majority of adults in the foyer.

"Also," Temari told them sharply. "The exam begins tomorrow at ten o'clock sharp and finish at six. Your grades will be given to you the day after."

The murmur of disappointment was suddenly overwhelmed by the gasps of shock and outrage from the genins. "But I thought this would take weeks!" a genin protested. From the sound of it, it was Kakashi's loudest student. "And last year in Kiri we had a whole fortnight to prepare!"

"Ninja who cannot prepare themselves for a simple test in the space of twenty-four hours are not fit to become chunin," Temari shot back coldly. "In a real battle, you would be lucky to get such advanced notice."

That effectively shut up the complainers.

"She has a point," Naruto sighed quietly. "Seems kinda cruel though."

"I think they just want to get rid of us as soon as possible," Sasuke murmured pessimistically.

Sakura sneaked a look at Kakashi to see what he thought of this arrangement, but the most she could see of him were the tips of his messy white hair over the heads of some of the other teachers. He was probably reading his book anyway, she thought with frustration.

She, Naruto and Sasuke arranged to get three rooms next to each other. She knew perfectly well that Naruto would probably wind up sharing Sasuke's for the entirety of their stay, but the more rooms the better (where room service and possible minibars were involved). And naturally Naruto wanted the rooms on the topmost floor. Initially Sakura disagreed, having lived in a third floor apartment for three years now and thoroughly fed up of the idea of climbing so many sets of stairs. But when Naruto pointed out the elevators, she grudgingly agreed.

And then wondered if Kakashi would also get a room on the top floor…

It was a stupid, obsessive thought that she immediately put out of her mind.

Then it popped back in.

Would he be on the same floor? Would it be a good thing if he was on the same floor? If his room was right next to hers? Maybe not. The sensible and logical side of her brain told her that it was best that she did not see him at all; out of sight and out of mind, and all that. But her heart hoped differently, because her heart had never been sensible or logical.

She idly imagined them actually sharing two rooms with an adjoining door. And she would walk through it and blink at him in surprise and say "Oh, I thought this was my bathroom. I'm so sorry to disturb you."

And then in a way that was perfectly suave and charismatic and probably very un-Kakashi-like, he would reply, "Oh no! Nothing about you could ever disturb me, Sakura. Now take off your clothes and get into my bed."

At which point her fantasy grew a little x-rated and Sakura had to shake herself out of her ridiculous imaginings. Because that would _never_ happen. Every time he looked at her he probably cringed to himself and thought '_student'_.

And probably nothing she could ever do would change that.

As she rode up in the elevator with Naruto and Sasuke and a dozen other people because the other elevator was broken, she sighed miserably to herself. "Don't you ever wish you had a switch for your heart so you could just turn off your feelings for others when you wanted to because they keep bothering you?"

"Yes," Sasuke said quite emphatically, glaring at Naruto who was picking his nose.

"That would be quite handy," someone at the back of the elevator said.

"Someone needs to invent that jutsu," said another.

"I wish I had one for my wife…" said a man.

"Yeah, well, I wish I had one that would make you do the dishes for once," said a woman.

Quite unaware that she'd started one surreal debate and one nasty argument, Sakura waited for the elevator doors to ping and stepped out, still trapped in her own stupor. Naturally Sasuke and Naruto immediately disappeared to explore their rooms before Naruto came barging into Sakura's to establish that, yes, they were exactly the same. When Sasuke eventually joined them, they simply lolled around Sakura's room, not saying anything.

"Well… now what?" Naruto asked, looking out of the window.

"I should probably train," Sasuke said.

"No way!" Naruto scowled back at him. "You've been training nonstop for two years. You need to _unwind,_ man! Relax yourself for the exams!"

Sakura sighed, rolling onto her back on the bed. "He means you should get drunk," she translated.

"You too, Sakura-chan," he told her. "You've been kinda down lately. Alcohol will fix that."

"Noooo…" she groaned, covering her face, "I just want to stay in and order room service and then go to bed early and forget all you horrible people until I wake up all nice and refreshed and ready to heal all the people Sasuke kills tomorrow."

Naruto and Sasuke gave each other a significant look. And then moving as one, they grabbed Sakura by an arm each and dragged her off the bed. "Hey!" she squalled.

"It's for your own good," they chorused.

Unless it had something to do with fighting, nothing good had ever come of a Naruto and Sasuke Plan.

They hauled her straight out of the hotel and into town to check out some of the sights while there was still daylight left. This included visiting a cactus that supposedly only ever bloomed flowers in the presence of a truly beautiful woman (Sakura was slightly put out by its clear indifference to her), a funny shaped rock that was supposed to be the place where an old Suna hero had once died, and a courtyard of statues celebrating previous kazekage.

They were all more or less pleased to see the statue of the man who was presumably Gaara's father was suitably vandalized and bore a comical moustache of black marker pen ink.

"Saves us having to do it, I suppose," Naruto whispered.

Then, because the temperature was cooling and the light was fading, they dragged her into the seediest bar they could find. Naturally they sold nothing that wouldn't produce some sort of spontaneous hair growth on the torso, so Sakura stuck to ordering water. And as the evening grew older, she began to wish that Naruto and Sasuke had done the same, because they both happened to get irritatingly loose-lipped when drunk.

"You know what your problem is, Sakura-chan," Naruto drawled after only his fifth sip. "You get these weird fantasies in your head, right? You fix your sights on some unattainable guy and pretend they're perfect. You need to forget about assholes like that and just stick to _normal_ people."

"What do you mean by _normal_?" she asked wearily. She wasn't happy. The bar was sticky beneath her hands, the air was filled with cigarette smog, and the temperature was stifling enough to mix with the overly sweet stench of alcohol in a way that made her feel nauseous. Never in her life had she wished dearly to be back home in her bed.

Apart from that time she'd been stuck in Mastura's bed.

Sakura nearly wretched for the hell of it.

"Normal!" Naruto declared. "You know, like, someone your own age with the same interests hobbies and shit."

Sakura remained stonily silent, partly because she feared she would actually throw up if she opened her mouth.

"Crushing on your teacher is just _weird_, you know?"

"Ino crushes on him," she pointed out, massaging her temples.

"Ino isn't his student," Sasuke reminded her, eyes closed. "And even then it's still weird."

Speak of the devil, Ino appeared at Sakura's shoulder. "Who's weird? Are you people talking about me again? Really, it's too much. You'll make my ears turn red."

Ino had arrived with Shikamaru and Temari, and for once Sakura was glad she was there. It meant that there was now something to distract Naruto and Sasuke for berating her over her 'crush', if you could even call it something as belittling as that now.

Sakura mostly stayed away from engaging in conversation. She sat and sipped her water and half-heartedly listened to Naruto relaying an anecdote that had everyone chuckling, and was very aware that it was simply no fun being depressed. She hadn't felt like this since Naruto and Sasuke had both left the village and she'd found herself unable to enjoy the company of her other friends, because the two people she wanted to see most simply were not there. She looked over at an empty stool to Sasuke's right and longed for Kakashi to be sitting in it. Just to be able to see him and hear his voice and feel his presence like nothing at all had gone bad between them.

"What's the matter?" Ino said, nudging Sakura. "I know you're dull, but you're not usually this boring. Have some of my drink."

Before Sakura could stop her, Ino had pushed her glass to Sakura's lips and made her inadvertently choke down a sloppy mouthful, banging the glass against her teeth. "Ino!" she wheezed. "How can you drink that? It tastes like bleach!"

"Acquired taste, clearly," Ino said, amused. "Now what's the matter, you can tell me."

"No I can't," Sakura muttered resentfully. "I know what you're like. I could tell you something now and by the time I got up the next morning, only the people living under rocks wouldn't know what I'd told you."

"Aw, Forehead, you know I'm good for it. Promise!" Ino grinned and held up her hand with her thumb pinning down her little finger. Sakura stared at her. It was their promise salute that they'd made up as kids when they'd still been best friends. And to this very day, Ino had never gone back on a promise salute, and Sakura felt oddly touched to see it again after so long.

"Alright," Sakura conceded, "but only because you're the only person who would know what to do."

Despite her confused look, she grabbed Ino's arm and dragged her further down the bar and away from the others. She didn't want anyone else listening in to their conversation. Ino regarded her with mild curiosity as Sakura drummed her fingers anxiously on the sticky bar top.

"You know this crush you have on Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura began tactfully, but was interrupted by Ino before she could continue.

"Oh, that again." Ino looked annoyed. "This is the second time you've brought it up. Look, I'm not going after him so you can just drop your over-protective act and pull yourself together."

Sakura ignored her on the basis that Ino didn't really understand. "Well, hypothetically speaking, how would you feel if Kakashi-sensei was interested in you?"

Ino's face smoothed out into an expression of shock. "Eh?" Then she looked uncertain. "Are you saying Kakashi is interested in me?" she whispered.

"No," Sakura said quickly. "That's not the case. I'm just wondering, since you like him, what would you do if he liked you back?"

The confusion on Ino's face had her wrinkling her nose for a few moments. Then suddenly realization dawned and she'd sobered. She looked at Sakura quite seriously, and for once there wasn't a trace of smugness or mocking in her tone. "Oh," she said, evidently taken aback. "You like him, don't you? And what… he likes you _back_?" Then a slightly more friendly sneer returned. "Jeez, he must be desperate. So what's the problem?"

"Some things happened between us," Sakura told her slowly, and somewhat reluctantly as she felt the emotion rise within her in the form of another lump in the throat. "And he said that he '_can't_'. And… now I-I don't know what to do. He won't talk to me, he'll barely even look at me or acknowledge me, and it's so confusing and I don't know how to talk to him and I don't know what _to do_. That's why I was asking you. What would you do?"

Ino pulled a face. "What did he mean 'can't' exactly?"

Sakura shrugged. "He just said he '_can't'_. He '_really can't'_," she sighed. "I think he meant he can't have a relationship with me."

"Then he's not interested," Ino said bluntly.

"He is."

"Oh yeah? Prove it."

Sakura bit her lip. "When he said it, he was lying on top of me and he had a… _you know_… down there." Sakura flapped her hands to supplement the word she didn't really want to say.

Ino gasped. "No way!" she hissed. "Seriously? How big would you say it was?"

"I-I don't think that's-"

"In cubic inches."

"_Ino_!"

"Sorry, sorry," Ino murmured, looking disappointed. "So, he clearly likes you and finds you attractive. But he doesn't want to be with you? Maybe… he feels restrained by your respective ranks and position? I mean, he's your teacher. The obvious answer is that your current relationship is not one he feels he can violate."

That _was_ the obvious answer. Sakura had just needed to hear it from someone else. She sighed and rubbed her face. "Problem is, we don't _have_ a current relationship. After what happened, it's all gone bad between us and I don't think we can ever be the same way with each other ever again," she said miserably. "I feel like I've lost a friend."

"In that case, you're in limbo. You can't go back, so your only other choice is to stay where you are and keep being unhappy or move on and take a chance," Ino pointed out. "I suppose that has a lot of potential to go wrong, but it's better to take that risk than let things remain bad and awkward between you for the rest of your lives."

Sakura shook her head. "I don't know how to do that. And it's _not_ what Kakashi wants."

Ino blew a raspberry. "Sakura, just because he's older than you, doesn't mean he knows better. Teachers don't have all the answers to everything. And I think you'll find that a thirty year old man can be just as confused and lost as a seventeen year old girl when it comes to romance. He's a _man_ for crying out loud. You can't expect _too_ much of him. Here; drinky, drinky!"

Sakura gratefully took Ino's drink and downed half the glass without noticing it still tasted like bleach.

"But you know," Ino told her musingly, "You're probably better off getting over it and finding a normal guy."

There was the word _normal_ again…

"Suna's an untapped resource, Forehead!" Ino said gleefully. "There's plenty of handsome boys around this place with sexy Suna accents! And you'd have no trouble getting a date because to them you're an exotic novelty. Guys always like foreign chicks."

Sakura nodded. "You're right."

"Of course I am!" Ino looked pleased. "I mean, we could start now. There's a really cute guy behind you eyeing up the back of your head, so-"

"No, not about that," Sakura said, waving her off. "I meant you're right about Kakashi. We can't go back so we have to keep trying to go forward or at least get some sort of closure. Now if you'll excuse me, I must be getting back to the hotel to get some sleep. I have to get up early tomorrow and prepare to kill all the people Sasuke heals."

Ino gave her pitying look. "Sakura… I think you're a little drunk."

"Then the sooner I get back the better," Sakura handed back Ino's drink and stood up. There was a vague feeling of light-headedness, but it wasn't particularly severe. She only felt slightly warmer and happier than before and not nearly as sozzled as Naruto and Sasuke were beginning to look. "I'll see you tomorrow, Ino."

"Remember what I said," Ino warned.

Something about… guys digging foreign chicks? "Whatever," Sakura gave her shoulder a friendly pat and walked out of the bar to head home.

Walking past the various active cafés and restaurants lit only by natural burning streetlamps, Sakura realized just how different Suna was from Konoha. The uniforms were different for a start, but a lot of people were also warmly dressed as if they couldn't feel the desert heat at all. It set Sakura quite obviously apart from them as she, like most people from another village, had stuck to wearing as very little as possible. This was probably the reason why so many men realized she was from Konoha and approached her.

"Want to join us for a drink?" some men would call out to her.

Sakura would wave back politely. "No thanks. Going home."

It could have been the fact that she was wearing a very short skirt though.

Everyone in Suna seemed to have a tan as well. Well, everyone except that pale-haired guy in the green vest over there. Sakura did a double-take and realized she was looking at a Konoha vest, and the person wearing it was none other than her Hatake Kakashi. Sakura came to a stop.

He hadn't seen her. He was sitting at the bar of a café that was similar to Ichiraku with his back to the street. A pen bobbed in his hand, writing something, and a tall glass and bottle was stationed next to his hand. He was completely unsuspecting and the stool to his left was empty.

It was possibly the effect of Ino's words or Ino's drink (or maybe both) that made her walk towards him. Suddenly he didn't seem quite so scary to face. The fear of the unknown was gone.

When she slipped onto the stool, Kakashi's pen paused against the report he was writing. Clearly he didn't even need to look up to recognize her. Whether it was her scent or her manner of movement or something else entirely that gave her away, Sakura didn't know. But she felt in inward tug of smugness at the level of tenseness he suddenly displayed. She could see he was wanted to leave, but even that was a bit too blatant for the Copy Ninja. Nonchalantly walking out of a room when she entered was one thing, but getting up and paying without a word when she sat down next to him was something else. Especially when he was clearly in the middle of something.

"You could say you were saving the seat for someone else," she told him. "I might believe you. Or perhaps you've just remembered you left your iron on at home and must rush back to Konoha?"

He straightened in his seat and looked at her. "Good evening, Sakura," he said, with a hint of a smile about his eyes. But it was perfunctory and meaningless; the kind you'd give to your dentist.

And what was more, as he stopped writing he moved his hand to cover his work. It was customary to shield reports from the eyes of others when in public, but it wasn't something Sakura did around trusted friends. Altogether it made her feel snubbed and unwanted, as if she was only interrupting him. And all that from a simple move of his hand?

More courage needed!

Sakura snagged Kakashi's bottle of drink and took a swig without asking. Almost immediately she regretted it and had to fight down the urge to spray everyone on the other side of the counter. "Urgh – that's worse than what Ino drinks!" she cried, coughing and spluttering.

"Shochu," Kakashi said blandly, taking back the bottle and moving it out of reach. "You're not really supposed to drink it straight out of the bottle like that. Better to mix it with water first." He made a motion as if to pat her back, but then seemed to think better of it. Sakura didn't miss it though.

Once she could breathe again, she wiped her mouth and gave him a sideways look. "Kakashi-sensei, I've been thinking…"

"Easy now."

She stared at his masked profile for a long moment, filtering out the noise of conversation and music around them. Only he mattered to her. "Are you angry at me?" she asked softly.

She expected him to shake his head and say 'no' whether or not it was the truth, but instead he just inhaled deeply and looked at her as if bored. "Why? Are you angry at _me_?"

Sakura looked down at the bar. "A little bit. There's this thing in my chest, and whenever I think about you it burns. And sometimes it feels good and sometimes it just hurts. It always feels stronger the closer I am to you. But… I don't know if it's hate or something else."

"Could be a cyst."

"_It's not a cyst!_" she snapped. "It's love, or something stupid like that."

"Mm," Kakashi sighed to himself. "Frankly you'd be better off if it was a cyst."

Sakura tapped her fingers on the bar and rested her chin in her palm morosely. "That was my way of telling you that I think I love you, by the way."

"Yeah," Kakashi said tiredly. "I know."

This really wasn't how it went on the romance novels. Normally love professions took place over moonlit rendezvous, or after a life-and-death situation, and occasionally after a bout of incredible sex. They didn't happen like this. She could just as easily have told him she'd forgotten to bring her toothbrush and his reaction probably would have been just as enthusiastic.

Feeling grumpy and depressed, Sakura's hand shimmied towards Kakashi's glass of Shochu and ice. He plucked it out of her grasp and pulled his mark to his chin to take a sip. "Not for you," he said, placing it down out of reach. "Buy your own."

"Can't. Not old enough here."

An intriguing cringe crossed his face at her comment. It was brief, and only caused a slight impression beneath his eyes, but it was there. She might have missed it had his mask been up, and suddenly it was one of those rare occasions where she could read his thoughts.

"My age makes you uncomfortable?" she murmured. She had suspected as much at the back of her mind, she had just been hoping that perhaps she was wrong. He often referred to her as 'too young to understand' things at times. It seemed to add up.

Kakashi gave another heavy sigh and began rolling up his report. He was going to walk away again. "Let's not talk about this, Sakura."

"No, _let's_," she insisted. "Is the reason why you don't want to be with me because I'm too young? Because I'm your stu-"

"Stop it," he said shortly, turning to face her abruptly. "You don't really want anything from me, so let's just forget it. It's not debatable. Nothing can ever happen and I won't let you make such a mistake."

He assumed a hell of a lot for someone who like to look underneath the underneath. There he went, undermining her feelings again and treating her like a child who didn't know what she wanted. Well, she wasn't sure she wanted a relationship with Kakashi to be honest. At least not if she was going to have to put up with these kinds of remarks all the time. He knew _nothing_ of what lay in her heart. It may be a mistake, but it was Sakura's to make if she so wished.

She scrutinized the hard lines of jaw as he picked up his drink with the intent to finish it in a few gulps. Clearly he was enough of a tightwad to finish what he'd paid for before storming out of the conversation. But tightwad or not, he was undeniably good-looking and her insides felt like complete jelly for watching him close his eyes, tilt his head up and swallow that way. She felt like a voyeuristic pervert for looking at him like that.

Not for the first time, the urge to kiss him rose again. Normally this urge was quashed by common sense and fear of rejection. However, in the presence of alcohol, these factors were strangely absent.

The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. "Kiss me."

Kakashi choked. He was forced to put down his half-empty glass and hold a sleeve to his nose as his drink had gone full circle around his nasal passages. Eventually he lowered his sleeve and carefully sniffed. "I'm not going to kiss you, Sakura," he said shortly, but he looked unsettled.

"Well… since you're pretty much my teacher and people always refer to me as your student," she said slowly, "I guess it would be crossing some sort of line if you kissed me." Despite the fact that he'd already done so.

Kakashi said nothing. He watched her impassively as she met his gaze earnestly.

"Please kiss me," she said, aware she was half and octave aware from a whine. "I won't tell anyone. There's no one here we know and I'm only asking for one."

"That's one too many," he said, glancing around as if to check for familiar faces.

Sakura scowled at him. "I _know _you want to kiss me too."

Again he said nothing. She had a feeling it was because to disagree would be to lie, and to agree would only weaken his position. She could see him struggling to find the words he wanted.

"Just one," she said, holding up a finger for emphasis. "Just one kiss, sensei."

He looked away from her.

Belatedly she corrected herself. "Kakashi."

She reached out to lay her hand over hers, only for him to pull it out of her reach. It hurt, but then she was used to getting hurt by all sorts of people so she tried not to let it show on her face. Even so, it must have shown, because a pang of regret pinched Kakashi's brow and he lifted that same hand he'd withdrawn to tuck a stray pink lock behind her ear. He cupped her head; his hand large enough to span across her neck to both curl his fingers around her nape and rest his thumb on her jaw. Sakura's heart leapt into her throat as she saw a familiar expression dawn on his face – the same one she'd seen in the forest after he'd tried to force-feed her a mushroom. The same distant hunger was there, as if the only thing that mattered in the entire universe at that moment was Sakura.

Then with a light tug, he pulled her forward and leant in to kiss her… on the corner of her mouth.

Sakura was too surprised to react. She didn't know what to make of this kind of kiss. She'd expected one full on the lips, with the same passion and sensuality he'd shown her before in Matsura's hideout. But it wasn't a meaningless peck on the cheek either. It was too long and lingering to be as platonic as that.

It was a kiss that contained a strange mixture of innocence and intimacy that she'd never felt before. Instantly Sakura felt guilty for demanding it in the first place. She could feel his hand shaking and both taste and smell the alcohol on his breath. Kakashi was a wreck, and she had no right to play with him just to sate her naïve curiosity.

Slowly he pulled back, removing his hand from where it was now cupping her cheek to grip his glass. She noticed his knuckles turn white as she touched the place he'd kissed her wonderingly.

"Go back to your room," he rasped, his voice having broken into a hoarse kind of whisper. "And lock your door."

She was about to ask why, but then she quickly understood and her insides flushed cold in shock. "Oh…" she breathed, sliding off the stool and onto her feet. Now she didn't know what to say. 'Goodbye' just seemed too _empty_. So instead she whispered. "Thank you… and I'm sorry. I won't bother you again."

She walked away calmly, but inside she was fleeing. She had no memory of what happened between then and the time she arrived before the door of her hotel room; the journey was just a blur. The moment Sakura closed the door behind her, she locked it and then went to sit on her bed.

Then she got up and unlocked it.

Ten minutes later after a quick shower and a swift change into her nightshirt, she went back and locked it again. The next half hour was spent under her covers, agonizing over whether she'd made the right decision. But before she could change her mind, the warmth of the bed and the intoxication of the alcohol had lulled her to sleep. And straight into a nightmare.

She hadn't had one for a while, though perhaps it was the combination of a strange bed and am unsteady mind that brought the unpleasant memories rushing back.

Matsura was there, pinning her to the bed, his mere presence larger than anything she could imagine and pressing down on her spirit so hard she could almost feel herself suffocating. And no matter how much she cried and begged and screamed, she could not find the strength to fight him off. He violated her with his hands, all the while muttering lewd and hurtful things in her ear with his thick tongue.

"He doesn't want you now that I've had you. You'll always be mine. I'll forever be your first."

Kakashi was there, but he either couldn't hear her screaming for him or was just ignoring her. He was in a distant place, reading his book, oblivious and indifferent to her distress and pain.

She woke up crying and thrashing against the covers, too delirious and upset to care that it was only a dream. It had seemed almost real, which was enough to have her chewing her pillow as she sobbed into it.

When the door handle suddenly rattled, Sakura's heart stopped and she stilled. She was certain it was Matsura. There was a shadow cast over the gap of light beneath the door, and she watched it carefully until it suddenly moved away.

Then she realized.

_Kakashi!_

Sakura leapt out of bed and ran to the door. She fumbled with the lock with shaking hands before yanking it wide open, ready to call him back. If there was any one person she needed at that moment it was him.

But all she saw was Naruto and Sasuke with an arm flung around each other in what was probably the only thing keeping them upright. They'd turned when her door opened and apologized profusely in very slurred voices.

"Sorry, sorry!" Naruto whispered loudly. "We couldn't remember which one was our room. Stupid curfew..."

Sakura didn't care. She left them alone and went back inside to lock the door again. she was still shaking in the wake of her dream as she curled up in bed for the second time. The last time she'd had a nightmare so severe, she had had Kakashi sleeping next to her to make her feel safe. Right then she had no one.

But just the memory of his most recent kiss made her relax a little. She touched the corner of her mouth again and closed her eyes, imaging the spot was still moist with the taste of his lips.

It was this and only this that allowed her any more sleep that night.

* * *

TBC

* * *

_A/N: If you reviewed the previous chapter 13, you probably won't be able to review this one. T.T If you want to leave one, you may have to go back to a chapter you haven't reviewed and leave one there. But I'm also open to PMs since I'm anxious to know people's take on the revision. _


	14. In which Sakura has a date

* * *

_Beautiful girl smiles when I need it the most._

_Smile on my heavy eyelids again._

* * *

There was an old legend in Suna which Sakura had heard many times in her childhood. It was simply so famous that it was hard to have not heard at least one version of the tale, even if you lived in a far distant country like Konoha. And sure, Konoha had its fair share of legends and fables that had spread far and wide, but it was the Suna tale of Toin and Mana that had captured Sakura's romantic young heart. 

It was the story of a young man named Toin who was naught but a simple ninja of the sand. He also happened to have been the first kazekage, implying he wasn't all that simple, but for the purposes of a sympathetic hero, he was supposedly quite ordinary. And one day whilst Simple Toin was patrolling the dunes, he came across a beautiful young woman by the name of Mana.

Mana, it turned out, was a goddess of the desert. But she was a goddess in distress above all else. "Have you seen my veil?" she pleaded of Toin. "I've looked everywhere, but I can't find it! And if I don't find it I can't return to my realm!"

Toin, being a very kind-hearted young man and very susceptible to a pretty face, agreed to help her look for it. They searched for many days, and each passing night, Toin fell more and more in love with Mana.

On the sixth day, Toin found Mana's veil, but was so distraught at the thought of her leaving him that he decided to hide it beneath a sand dune so that it would never be found.

In time, Mana too fell in love with Toin and decided to give up her search for her veil to give him her hand in marriage and they lived many cherished and happy years together. However, one day while Toin was away on business, Mana went out to the desert and caught sight of a glittering cloth protruding from the sand. It was her veil. The moment she put it on again, she knew what Toin had done.

When Toin returned to find his wife wearing her celestial veil, his heart stopped and he fell to his knees, begging for forgiveness. However, Mana could not forgive his betrayal, but she loved him enough to take pity.

"Build me a kingdom," she told him. "Build me a land fit for a goddess and I will return to you."

Toin spent the rest of his life founding Sunagakure. He took another wife to produce some heirs, but he never truly loved her as he had Mana. He even took to wearing a mask in honor of his first wife and her veil.

But apparently his efforts to build a worthy kingdom never met Mana's expectations and he died, still awaiting her return, even though many Suna citizens were in stout agreement that Suna was _definitely_ fit for a goddess – she was just being too picky.

Whether the legend had any basis in reality, Sakura wasn't sure. She had a feeling it was just some exaggerated cover story to explain why the Shodaime Kazekage's first wife had left him. Certainly it was because she was a goddess, and not because he was bad in bed or he'd insulted her cooking one too many times or anything…

Sakura hadn't thought of that old story in a very long time. The only reason she thought of it now was because someone had slipped a leaflet under her door entitled '_Toin-Mana Festival tonight! Do not forget to come!_'.

But that morning as she sat up in bed with the leaflet in her hand and her hair stuck on one side, she looked out the window and understood why Mana had yet to return. In the wrong light, Suna, with alls it craggy brown spires and domes, looked nothing more than an overly ambitious sand castle.

But then everything looked quite ugly that morning, including Sakura. When she managed to haul herself out of bed to go poke her face in the mirror, she regretted it. The dark smudges and pallid complexion testified to a bad night's sleep and a god awful nightmare. She wished she had a veil like Mana or a mask like Toin to hide her face away, because really that reflection quite obnoxious…

Nevertheless, she had a job to do that day, so she had no choice but to unpack her suitcase and drag out her medic uniform. It was too warm a day to be stuffing herself into the white overcoat that resembled a straitjacket, but rules were rules, and if Tsunade said she had to wear a big sign saying 'DOCTOR' by god she'd have to do it or else suffer the consequences.

When she'd finished pinning on her hat with the red cross on it, she went to lie back down on the bed, too tired and suffering a malaise of depression to go wake Naruto and Sasuke up. She picked up the leaflet regarding the impending festival and tapped it against her lips while she debated going. At that moment she didn't feel in the mood to go dancing or celebrating an old love story, but no doubt Naruto would think she was being lovesick again and drag her out to have some fun.

She recalled what had happened last night when he'd done just that, and closed her eyes as the memory of Kakashi's soft kiss against the corner of her mouth resurfaced. It had been so tender and so gentle… so stolen. Even now the thought of it made her feel guilty. It felt wrong to take a kiss from a man who was clearly struggling with himself. He'd wanted her again. She'd felt his restraint and suspected, but his words had confirmed it.

_Lock your door_.

She had. And now she wondered if he'd tried the door. What might have happened if she'd left it unlocked? Would she be waking up right now with him? Would she be hearing the tired old lecture of 'it's a mistake' and 'it can't happen again'?

Perhaps she'd done the right thing. As much as she'd wished for Kakashi last night, maybe her heart just couldn't take the knock he would inevitably give her once he'd slacked whatever lust he felt for her.

At quarter to nine she rose again and gathered her things to make her way to the hospital. As she passed Naruto's door, she stopped and knocked on it. "Naruto? Sasuke? It's time to get up. Sasuke has an exam in an hour."

There was a loud, unhappy groan from the other side that could only have been Naruto. "_Maargrhgh_…." Roughly translated, this meant, "Please keep your voice down and leave me alone, I have a bad headache and I don't feel like getting up right now. Come back later with aspirin, thank you."

"It's your own fault!" she admonished wearily. "You both have hangovers now, don't you? _Typical._"

With one last ominous warning that Sasuke would remain a genin for _another_ year if they didn't get up, she made her way to the elevator. However, the moment she stepped inside, she wished she hadn't.

Firstly, the florescent tubes of light overheard were very unflattering on her pale, wan complexion. The mirrors lining each wall of the elevator informed her as much.

Secondly, some little idgit had hit every single button for every single floor. "Damn it!" she cursed loudly when she spotted the lit up panel and was about to walk out and take the stairs when the doors slid shut two inches from her nose. The elevator began its slow grind downwards.

Sakura huffed a soft sigh and turned to examine her appearance more closely in the mirror beside her. She straightened her medic hat, aligning the hairpins keeping it in place _just so_ to keep the red cross in the center. Her face was still less perfect, but there was no point wearing make-up. It would only run in this kind of desert heat.

The elevator slowed as it reached the fourth floor and the doors peeled open with a soft whine. Sakura looked up at exactly the same time as Kakashi and for a moment they were rabbits caught in a glaring light, panicked and unable to move. They just stared at each other through the open elevator doorway.

It was only when the door began sliding shut again that Kakashi seemed to remember himself. His hand snapped out to stop the closing panels and Sakura hastily stepped aside to allow him room, head bowed and cheeks ablaze. He moved next to her, one hand in his pocket and the other reaching out to select his destination from the panel. "Uh…" He realized the same problem as Sakura.

"It wasn't me," she said hastily, in case he got the wrong idea.

"Mm-hm." It seemed she was too late.

They said nothing more as the doors clicked shut again and the elevator resumed its slow descent. Sakura folded her arms tensely, worrying her lip.

Here they were. Two adults (or at least one adult and one very emotionally stunted man), pretending nicely that there was nothing going on between them - that they hadn't traded a little kiss last night and he hadn't warned her to lock her door against him. And that he hadn't pushed her to the ground in the Water Field and shown her proof of his lust for her only a few days ago. Or that a few days before that he hadn't nearly undressed her beneath a willow tree, or sucked her thumb, or made-out with her in a gallery, or struck his hand between her legs after enjoying a light travel snack of mochi.

And what did he have to say after all this time?

"I like your… hat thing."

"Thanks," she said, lifting a hand to adjust it self-consciously and very likely messing up the careful arrangement she'd had before. "Um… all medic-nins are supposed to wear them."

"Of course."

_Now ask about the weather,_ she goaded him silently, feeling a tad bit annoyed. Why did he insist on living in this constant state of denial? Why did he have to walk into _her _elevator and dictate the rules of engagement, all the while smelling utterly masculine and delicious in a way that made her knees weak?

She was painfully aware of him in every sense, from his clean, enticing smell to the soft movement of his breathing. Physically he dwarfed her; she could see in the mirrors that even after all these years, she still only came up to his chin. And if at that very moment he decided to use his larger frame to push her smaller one up against the side of the elevator and proceeded to have his way with her… she'd let him, ready to surrender to his strength and comfort at any time.

But that was if she didn't jump him first.

At that moment it seemed debatable, because while to the casual observer Kakashi might have _looked_ calm and collected, Sakura noticed his usual nonchalance was off-beat. His natural slouch had been replaced by a slightly more tense, straight-backed stance. Hands that were almost always either occupied in with an Icha Icha novel or stuffed into his pockets were clasped behind his back. She could almost feel the tension rolling off of him in waves. He was aware of her just as much as she was of him, and what was probably only a few seconds in reality as the elevator descended seemed to stretch and warp as the invisible tension grew worse.

Sakura knew she only had to lift and a hand to touch him and he'd probably snap. She was so close…

Before she could give in to the temptation to see what would happen when Kakashi snapped, the elevator came to a wallowing halt on the third floor. The doors peeled back to reveal a young man and woman who were clearly not morning people.

"Good morning," Ino croaked, despite it obviously being a bad one, and trudged into the elevator with a poorly concealed yawn. Shikamaru followed after her, rubbing the back of his neck with his eyes barely open. His hair was a mess.

Sakura and Kakashi pressed back against the far wall to make room for them and once more the elevator resumed its downward journey. Sakura sighed inwardly, feeling that Ino and Shikamaru had walked into the elevator, quite oblivious to the mood between Sakura and Kakashi and had torn through their tension like walking through unseen cobwebs. It was still there, but it was dampened by the proximity of other people.

It was then that Sakura realized Ino was giving both her and Kakashi surreptitious glances though the mirrors. Evidently she hadn't drunk enough last night to forget what Sakura had told her, and Sakura belatedly realized that Ino would be overanalyzing any interaction she had with Kakashi from that day on.

What worried Sakura most was that when Ino caught wind of any potential development in Sakura's non-existent love life, she tended to get a sly, amused look. But during the entirety of that elevator ride, Ino's expression remained curious and a little wary. It was almost as if she didn't approve.

She might have just been jealous.

Or perhaps simply she, like everyone else, did not think much of students and teachers developing _those_ kinds of feelings for each other.

So it was with a greedy sense of relief that the elevator finally arrived on the ground floor. She just wanted to get away from all of them. From Ino and her disapproving looks, from Kakashi and his edibility and Shikamaru with his furtive 'when-is-she-going-to neuter-me?' glances. Sakura might have sprinted all the way to Suna's hospital for the exam preparations if Temari hadn't been blocking their way out of elevator.

"Examiners, you're to head to the academy. Medics to the infirmary, and teachers and their genins are to be at the academy by ten o'clock sharp," she said, looking at each of them in turn before landing her gaze on Ino, who was neither a teacher, student, medic, examiner, ANBU or Hokage. "And what are you here for?"

"Moral support," Ino said firmly.

_And free room service_, Sakura silently added.

"Then the third phase of the exams will start at around three o'clock. You'll be wanted in the stadiums at that time," Temari drawled. "Also the Toin-Mana Festival is tonight. Are you coming?"

"I think so," Sakura said uncertainly.

"Why not?" Ino shrugged, smiling at the thought of more freebies.

"Um…" Shikamaru scratched his neck again.

"Uh…" Kakashi joined echoed him.

"Suit yourselves," Temari scoffed, giving the two men an amused look as she pushed between them and disappeared into the elevator before the doors slid shut again.

Ino dragged Shikamaru away, loudly proclaiming something about getting breakfast and only shot one more suspicious look at Sakura and Kakashi before they disappeared. Sakura peeked him at Kakashi and gave him a mild shrug. "You wouldn't happen to know where the hospital is, would you?" she asked.

His gaze slid over her briefly as he set off towards the exit. "It's in the same district as the genin academy," he informed her casually. "I'm meeting my students there so I can show you the way."

"I see," she said, falling into step beside him. "You wouldn't happen to be late to meet them, would you?"

"It's always a possibility."

He led her down the main street which, save for the copious amounts of dust and sand settled around the building edges, was just as busy and diverse as a Konoha town. Colorful streamers and decorations were being strung from window to window while people were beginning to set up stalls wherever there was space. Sakura could already smell something delicious and savory cooking in the air.

She gave Kakashi a nudge with her elbow. "Are you sure you won't come to this festival?" she asked. "I'm sure it'll be fun."

"Hm." He sounded reluctant. "I'll probably be in hospital keeping an eye on my students once Sasuke beats them to a fine pulp."

"Oh, whatever. I can fix pulp in ten minutes," she said dismissively. "That's no excuse."

"I'm sure I'll find a better one by tonight."

"Why don't you want to come?" she prodded. "It'll be fun!"

He sighed. "Sakura, festivals and partying is for the young."

"That's rubbish. You _are_ young."

"By ninja standards, I'm practically ready to start my pension."

"If you're a pensioner, then what the hell is Jiraiya-sama?"

"A coffin-dodger."

"Ooh… no more Icha Icha discounts for you."

"Shame. And I don't like crowds."

"They've never bothered you before."

"I don't like the sweets."

"But you _love_ sweets!" protested Sakura. She waited for him to think of some other reason why joining in the festivities would be a bad idea, but when he remained obstinately silent she gave him an annoyed tsk. "You just don't want to go because you think _I'm _going. You don't even want to be around me anymore – I bet even showing me the way to the hospital is grating on you!"

"Of course it's grating on me," he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Sakura's mouth dropped open, unable to think of anything to say to a comment like that. She felt like she was riding a bike that had suddenly switched to first gear, the cogs in her brain suddenly spinning quite uselessly. "Kakashi!" she ground out, clenching her fists. "You may smell nice but sometimes you're a complete jerk!"

She pivoted smartly and stomped away from him. Immediately she caught sight of a white overcoat adorned with a medic symbol and made a beeline towards the owner, quite unconcerned that she was marching up to a complete stranger. "Excuse me," she began a little bluntly, making the Suna medic-nin start. "Do you know the way to the hospital?"

"I… uh…" She seemed to have taken the young man by surprise and he stared at her as if he'd never seen anyone with pink hair before. "I-I I'm going there right now."

"Oh, good. Then I can walk with you." The way she said it let him know it was a demand, not a request.

"Of… of course." He looked faintly bewildered as he began showing her the way. "Uh – I'm Takuya, by the way."

"Sakura," said Sakura, glancing over her shoulder to try and gauge Kakashi's reaction to her finding a new escort.

Only he'd vanished.

* * *

"So where are you from?" 

It was a bit on an inane question, considering he only had to look at the hitai-ate tied around her sleeve to find the answer. But he was clearly making a stab at polite conversation so Sakura stabbed back. "Konoha." Then to tease him she added, "You?"

"Oh, I live here. Suna-medic-nin," he gushed happily. "I suppose you're here for the exams?"

"No, I'm just here to work on my tan," she told him evenly.

"Oh. That's an odd reason."

The boy lacked a sense of humor, Sakura realized. Or at least he lacked the ability to pick up subtle humor in a way that was very reminiscent of Naruto. It was her own fault. She'd spoken to him like he was Kakashi, automatically expecting him to pick up on the dryness of her remark and respond in kind with something like "Yes, by covering yourself up with copious amounts of medical uniform, naturally." Except, he was smarter than her so he'd probably be able to come up with something even more witty.

With a pang she realized she missed the easy-flowing conversations she had with Kakashi. Every time they spoke now, their words were laced with awkwardness and discomfort and eventually degenerated into an argument.

It looked like she'd have to be less understated with this guy. "No, I _am_ here for the exams," she said with a faintly embarrassed laugh. "I'm the hokage's apprentice."

"Really?" Takuya sounded shocked. "You're Haruno Sakura?"

"The very same." Sakura was surprised for two reasons. The first being that Takuya seemed to have heard of her, and the second being that she'd said 'the very same'. Something she'd never said before in her life and hoped never to say again. It made her sound like she was from an old black and white movie.

"You're the one who was with Chiyo-baa-sama when she… weren't you?" Takuya said softly.

"Yes. You knew Chiyo?"

"Most people in the medic field here do." Takuya grinned at her. "She invented half of the techniques we use today. Oh!" Suddenly he grabbed her hand and tugged her over to a delicious smelling stall. Sakura regarded their joined hands uneasily, but it seemed rude to pull her hand away when he was making such an effort to be nice and polite. She didn't want to get off on the wrong foot with him so she let him get away with it. "You have to try these," he said, releasing her to gesture at the array of sweets and candies lined up along the stall shelves. "Emi-san makes delicious treats – best in all of Suna! Emi-san, this is Sakura. Can you spare her one? She's a guest here."

"They're for the festival, Takkun," the woman behind the stall admonished gently, but smiled nonetheless. "But of course. You may have one each if you promise to tell others about me."

Sakura picked up one small cake that seemed to be a mixture of chocolate and cream and something sticky and pink. When she popped it in her mouth she gasped. "That's so good…" she whispered. "That's… that's edible happiness!"

She thanked Emi-san profoundly before Takuya began ushering her along again. "Are you coming to the festival?" he asked her as he took her down a long narrow alley behind a terrace of houses.

"I don't know," she said honestly. She hadn't felt like it when she'd gotten up that morning, and her argument with Kakashi had hardly put her in a partying kind of mood. "I might be too tired… and it's not like I have anyone to go with."

"Oh, it's not that kind of festival," he informed her happily. "It's open to all. It may be celebrating the story of Toin and Mana's divine love, but it also celebrates Toin's newfound love for his second wife. She came along and healed his heart, you see. There are many version of the story, you see, but in the original tale Toin's second wife was just as important to him as Mana. People forget her because she's not as interesting as a goddess, but she was the mother of his children so she deserves some remembrance. So many people here view the festival as a time to find new love in the wake of a broken heart."

"I didn't know that," Sakura said, pondering his words.

Takuya smiled softly. "Some people say Mana is still waiting to return and that one day when Suna meets her expectations, she'll arrive. It's said that she was the only woman beautiful enough to make that old Lovers Cactus bloom. I imagine she looks a lot like you."

Sakura looked at him sharply, wondering if she'd somehow misheard or if he was teasing her. But it seemed he'd meant it as a genuine compliment and for a moment she was baffled as to how to respond. "Well… I think that old cactus begged to differ yesterday." She felt awkward, and it wasn't the kind of awkwardness she felt around Kakashi when he was being cold. It was the kind she felt whenever Lee blew a dreamy sigh in her direction.

"Never mind that old cactus. I'm pretty sure it died fifty years ago." He gave her a conspiratorial whisper as he added, "They say Chiyo used a pretty nasty jutsu on it in her youth when it failed to bloom for her too, which effectively shot its power. At least that's what everyone tells their wife and girlfriend when they go to visit it."

Sakura laughed. "That plant could be responsible for a lot of breakups, you know."

"I know." He took her hand again. "Come on, the hospital is this way."

This time she had no inclination to tug her hand away.

* * *

When the third stage of the exam quite literally kicked off in Suna's battle arena (Sasuke, first up, kicked his opponent straight off the large platform and into the stands) everyone looked a little tired and ragged. Genin from Konoha and various other villages were simply not used to fighting in the Suna heat, and more often than not, Sakura was running up onto the platform to revive a dehydrated examinee. 

She'd been paired up with Takuya, but often by the time he reached their patient she would already have healed them.

"You're good," he told her, sounding slightly unnerved after the fifth time she'd beaten him to it. "Tsunade-sama must have taught you well."

She watched Sasuke merciless draw out his second fight with one of Kakashi's students in a way that was just mocking. At one point he even put a hand on the boy's head and held him at arm's length while the kid attempted to swipe at him with a kunai. Eventually Shikamaru ended that match on the basis that it was clearly going nowhere and Sasuke simply couldn't be beaten.

What annoyed her most was that the Suna examiners let the fights escalate to almost lethal proportions. The losers were barely alive by the time the fights were through, and the victors usually weren't much better. Even with a whole host of extra medics from other villages there, none of them were given a moment's peace. Sakura was constantly running back and forth, scribbling seals over the back of her hand to concentrate her waning jutsu.

By the end of it all, Sakura was both physically and mentally exhausted. And if she wanted to feel _emotionally _exhausted, all she had to do was catch a glimpse of Kakashi and her heart would suddenly weigh over a hundred pounds. As cleaners came in to sweep away the blood soaked sand and the crowds departed, Sakura collapsed in a jelly-legged heap against the medical bay wall. Around her, genin wibbled and worried or cheered and guffawed over their performances, bragging to their teachers while others still lay on stretchers looking grim and gray.

Sakura was so glad she didn't have to take the chunin exam again. Just watching the entire spectacle again had reminded how _awful _it was…

Something cold pressed against her cheek and hew eyes flew open with a startled gasp.

"You looked like you needed a drink," Kakashi said simply, offering her the blessedly cold bottle of water he'd touched to her cheek.

Sakura sighed with a mixture of gratitude and fatigue. "Thank you" She accepted the bottle with shaky hands and greedily tipped her head up to gulp down hasty mouthfuls until she had to breathe. Kakashi was giving her a strange look when she lowered the bottle again and immediately she was aware of how damp and sweaty she probably looked. And a lot of the water from the bottle had dribbled down her throat and into her cleavage. Kakashi probably thought she looked like a grubby and slightly deranged tramp. "What?" she barked, switching on her hostility in the face of self-consciousness.

Kakashi smiled and gave a soft laugh. "Oh, nothing," he said, the way people did when there was a joke they didn't feel like explaining.

He settled down against the wall next to her, his own bottle in hand that he took sips from through his mask. For a long time they said nothing, but for once it felt comfortable and companionable.

"You did good today," he said after a while.

"So did your students," she murmured. "You know… when they weren't up against Sasuke."

"Yeah, that was just…" Kakashi trailed off, searching for the right word.

"Cruel?" she supplied. "Torturous? In poor taste?"

Kakashi made a vague noise. "I was going to say 'funny', but now I feel bad."

"That's because you're a bad person," she told him seriously, clenching her teeth over the neck of her bottle as she sucked thoughtfully.

"This is very true."

He looked at her and she looked at him. A pained look crossed his visible eye when the bottle slid from her lips with a wet pop. "What?" she asked again, wondering why he kept giving her so many odd looks as if she'd stealthily grown a moustache while he wasn't looking. She moved to bottle back to her mouth, but Kakashi's hand slowly forced it back down.

"Don't do that," was all he said.

"Don't do what?" She genuinely had no idea what she'd done.

"Don't suck on your bottle like that."

Sakura gave him her best stupefied look. "Why not?"

"Just don't."

"You can't tell me what to do," she said hotly, jerking the bottle up and out of his grip. The result was that a considerable amount of water splashed over her nose. "Ew… now you've made it squirt all over my face. I hope you're happy."

But he seemed to be quite the opposite. Kakashi was bent double with his face in his hands, shaking slightly as if with small, quiet sobs. It was such a rare phenomena to behold that it took Sakura several moments to realize he was actually laughing.

Suddenly he straightened, taking a deep breath. Humor still danced in his lone dark eye. Reaching out, he ruffled her sandy hair. "You're so cute," he teased. "And so innocent."

Sakura frowned. "Hey…" As much as she loved it when he touched her – even if it was just to mess up her hair – she had a feeling that being called 'innocent' was more of an insult than a compliment.

Kakashi got to his feet and stretched a little before bending down to chuck her chin and smile into her confused face. "I hope you never have to change," he said softly.

A hot blush settled on her cheeks that had nothing to do with the weather. She watched him walk away, not at all certain of what he'd meant by his parting comment. She knew that she didn't entirely appreciate it though. Being called 'innocent' was along the same lines as being called 'naïve' or 'immature' or 'stupid Forehead Girl', all of which were terms that had been used to describe Sakura many times in the past.

Someone else arrived at her side and Sakura was forced to tear her eyes away from Kakashi's departing derriere to look up and see Takuya. He had a streak of blood across his cheek that didn't seem to belong to him, but at least he didn't seem quite as tired as her. "Hello, Sakura-chan," he greeted.

"Hey, Takkun." She tried to find Kakashi again, but he'd wheedled out of sight by then.

"Who were you talking to just then?" Takuya asked casually, taking the seat Kakashi had vacated.

"You?" she teased.

"No, that man just now. The one with the…" His hand hovered over his left eye, but then he seemed to realize that was a little politically incorrect and gestured at the top of his head. "The one with the white hair."

"Just a friend. My old teacher, actually."

Takuya peeled off his hood and drew the back of his hand across his moist brow. He was a brunette, Sakura realized belatedly. "Tell you what though," he said. "He's a dead ringer for the White Fang."

"The white what?" she repeated, getting a strange sense of déjà vu. "Who's that?"

"A war criminal from long ago. Quite famous around here."

"Oh! Well – no." Sakura shook her head furiously. "Kakashi's not the Black Tooth, or whatever. He's too lazy to be a war criminal; all he does is read books and wear masks."

"How dull," Takuya said.

"Mm," Sakura hummed, mimicking a Kakashi-style response.

"So!" Takuya declared, beaming at her. "Since we've done our jobs, I guess this is goodbye. I probably won't see you after this."

"I suppose…" Sakura agreed softly.

"Unless," he added carefully. "You want to come to the festival with me?"

Sakura blinked at him in surprise. "Come to the… oh!" she gasped. "You mean, like a date?"

Takuya gave a sheepish laugh. "Yeah, I guess. Like a date."

All day Sakura had been building herself up to locking herself away in her hotel room again to keep Naruto and Sasuke from dragging her out to have a good time. She wanted to mope. Kakashi was an obstinate ass and she simply wasn't brave enough to deal with him without alcohol abuse. It was enough to make _anyone _want to curl up in bed and go to sleep early, just to forget all the horrible elements in their life.

But Naruto had said she should find someone 'normal'. Sasuke had silently concurred. Then Ino had added her voice to the generally consensus that Sakura really needed to get out more and find a normal guy. Enough with the emotionally distant men! She suspected even Kakashi wanted this for her, since he'd made it abundantly clear that he didn't want a relationship with her.

So she took a quick gulp of water and tapped the bottle nib against her lip. "Would you describe yourself as 'normal'?" she asked curiously.

Takuya looked thrown. "As opposed to…?"

"As opposed to strange, cold, mysterious, enigmatic… uh… kinda touched in the head, and a little eccentric with incredibly bad depth perception ninety-nine point nine percent of the time as well as an odd affinity to poorly written pornography."

"Oh, yes." He nodded quickly. "Quite normal in that case."

"Good!" she declared, rolling back onto her feet to look down at him. "I'll find a nice dress and you can pick me up whenever. You know my hotel. My room is number fifteen and it's on the top floor. Ok?"

"Ok!" Takuya saluted.

She felt empowered – like she was Tsunade rattling off a string of orders that would be obeyed without question. Sakura found she rather liked it. Turning, she gave him a small wave as she departed. "I'll see you tonight then, Takkun."

* * *

"What – NO! I forbid it! You're not to go out with that guy!" 

Sakura ignored Naruto, which was a very difficult task when he insisted following her around the room, hovering directly over her shoulder at all times. She could see him fuming and panicking behind her while she examined herself in the mirror, holding one dress over her front and then another. "I thought you said I should find myself a normal guy?" she pointed out, closing one eye to see if that made her judgment any better.

"Yes, but not yet!" he whined. "Wait a few years at least!"

Sakura wanted specifics. "How many years?"

"Well…" He rubbed his neck. "At least five years. And then at the end of five years we'll talk about it, and maybe put on an extension."

"For the love of-!" Sakura whirled around and pushed him so hard he landed on the bed three meters away. "Why are you allowed to fall in love and have fun, but every time I try and get a little happiness for myself you try and stop me?"

Sasuke, sitting in a chair by the window with his sword across his lap hummed a soft agreement. "She's right."

Naruto spluttered, aware that he was completely lacking support. "Why can't you go back to liking Kakashi? Even he's better than some Suna loser."

Sakura didn't answer. She still wasn't entirely sure that she liked Takuya enough to date him, but she had to at least _try _and get Kakashi out of her mind. If she told Naruto this, he'd only throw a more panicked fit. It was one thing to crush on an older man, but to actually be in love with one…?

Instead she avoided the question by asking, "Which dress, do you think?" She held up each. "The little black one or the white one with the red flowers?"

"The black one," the two boys chorused bleakly.

That settled it. Sakura wriggled into the white one with the red flowers.

"Takkun's a nice guy," she told them as she dressed. "He's nice, he's kind, he's polite. He has a good rapport with this old woman who makes cakes. Bad people don't have rapports with nice old people, so I don't know what your problem is, Naruto – and stop looking at my bra. He's a medic like me, so he probably shares the same interests."

"How old is he?" Sasuke asked.

"I don't know." She paused to look at the ceiling thoughtfully. "Twenty? Twenty-one?"

Naruto gasped. "That's far too old!"

"_Shut! Up!" _Sakura threw her coat hanger at him in spite. "Jeez! I'm beginning to think one minute older would be 'far too old' in your book!"

"Sakura!" Naruto pleaded. "Guys that age… well, they're gonna expect certain things on a date with a girl."

Sakura's hands slowed on the bow she was tying behind her back. "Like what?" she asked, confused.

"I mean, like, it's not like kissing and hugging. Takkun-bastard's probably only looking to feel you up and get into your panties."

There was no point throwing anything else at him. He simply didn't learn. Sakura rallied her calm and turned her back on him. "I can handle it," she said snippily.

"Are you sure?" Naruto asked anxiously. "I mean you _are _a V-I-R-J-I-N."

Sakura's palm hit her face. A dull beat of silence pulsed though the room until she heard Sasuke say, "You're an idiot."

"And you'll be a _dead_ idiot," Sakura added, "if you ever mention that fact aloud ever again. Do you understand?"

There was a knock at the door.

Sakura instantly spun on the boys and waved a stern finger at them. "_Behave!_" she hissed vehemently.

But when she opened the door, it wasn't Takuya who stood there. It was Kakashi. "Yo," he said, lifting a hand.

"Hello," she said coolly. Behind her, Naruto snapped upright on the bed. "What are you doing here?"

"I was looking for Sasuke," he replied. "I need to tell him when the exam results will be in." Sakura didn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed – no, she was disappointed. _Definitely _disappointed.

"Sasuke's in here," she said dully, standing back to let him inside.

Kakashi brushed past her, assaulting her once more with the wake of his masculine aroma. "Are you all off the festival?" he asked his former team. "Well, at least one of you made an effort." He flicked a brief glance at Sakura, which was his way of saying she looked nice. He'd never be that direct though.

"That's because _she's _got a date," Naruto said, the way some people might say "She's got foot fungus."

Sakura watched Kakashi's reaction carefully. His gaze snapped back on her – a little too fast to be casual interest, but not fast enough for the boys to notice. "A date, huh?" he murmured. His tone was soft and nonchalant, however there was no mistaking the intensity of the gaze that had her pinned to the spot. "It's nice you're taking pity on the blind."

Even though it was a friendly put-down, it annoyed her more than it should have. "He's not blind," she grumbled, wondering if she was more irritated by his easy acceptance than anything else. Perhaps she would only have been satisfied if he threw himself down on one knee and sobbed into her stomach that he alone was the only one for her? "He's a brunette," she finished lamely.

"Oh, wow!" Kakashi enthused quite insincerely. "A brunette! So what's his name, where do we find him and how do we kill him?"

"His name is Takkun, he's a medic, he's absolutely gorgeous and you can't kill him because I'm _dating_ him, ok?" She turned back to the mirror to fluff her freshly washed hair. "He's really quite nice."

"He sounds horrible," Naruto said, pulling a face.

"Ghastly," Kakashi echoed.

"Sounds… weak," Sasuke murmured contemplatively.

"Well, you're all rotten to the core, so naturally you wouldn't recognize a good soul even if you sat on one." She was about to disparage them more when another knock sounded on the door.

"This room's getting quite busy," Kakashi remarked dryly as she moved to answer it.

Takkun greeted her with a smile on the other side. "Hey, Sakura-chan – oh – I didn't realize you had company." He gave the other men in her apartment a curious, and slightly bemused wave.

"They're no one," she said dismissively, ignoring Naruto's scoff of outrage. "Are you ready?"

"Uh – sure," Takuya said, bemused.

"'Kay, let's go!"

She stamped into her boots and grabbed his arm to pull him back out through the door. Before she shut it behind her, she sent the three boys three very fierce glares.

Then she was gone.

* * *

Naruto, Sasuke and Kakashi stared at the closed door in mute outrage, indifference and shock respectively. 

"Horrible," Naruto said eventually, rolling backwards on the bed. "Yuck. How can she stand to touch him?"

"You're just feeling possessive," Sasuke told him evenly.

"Yeah – well, she's ours!" Naruto bit back. "You don't want some loser from Suna taking her away from us, do you? What if she really likes him? What if he gets her to move here with him?"

Sasuke's silence confirmed that he didn't particularly like that idea, but admitting Naruto was right was just something he did not do aloud. The two boys looked up at Kakashi, waiting for him to stop staring at the door.

"What do you think, Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto ventured.

Kakashi seemed to come out of his stupor with a soft intake of breath as he shoved his hand into his pocket. "Seems nice."

Sasuke snorted. "You hate him, don't you?"

"'Hate' is a very strong word," Kakashi mused, more to himself than the boys. "But perhaps not quite strong enough in this case." He looked back at Naruto and Sasuke with a disinterested sweep of a glance. "Aren't you going to the big street party?"

"Tired," Sasuke said, turning his head away.

Naruto gave him a sulky pout. "I wouldn't mind going," he complained.

A vague sigh escaped Kakashi as he turned to Naruto and lifted his hand from his pocket. Between his fingers were two coins. "Twenty ryo," he said, holding it out to Naruto, "for you to blow on whatever you'd like."

Sasuke's head snapped back around in indignation as Naruto dived forward with a cry of "Yes!" Kakashi's hand deftly snatched the coins out of reach before Naruto could take them. "_If_," he stressed slowly, flipping one coin provocatively over the back of his knuckles, "you do me this one favor."

* * *

Sakura had never actually been on a date before. She didn't really count the pretend ones she had with Naruto, because… well… it was _Naruto_. It was probably quite sad that at seventeen, while most of her friends and peers were forming serious relationships and enjoying the wonders of sex, she had yet to experience her first proper date. Although she wasn't exactly sure what happened on dates (and she'd never quite grasped the rules of conduct regarding first, second and third dates) she could make a few educated guesses. Mostly she'd just go along with the flow. 

The festival was a lively affair. The music was loud, the streets were crowded and half the time Sakura couldn't be sure if the things she was bumping into and apologizing to were puppets or people. She spotted Ino forcing Shikamaru to have fun while Chouji parked himself at the nearest food stall and 'sampled' everything on the menu, and in the middle of the wide street was a group of performers and their puppets enacting some kind of play. Sakura guessed they were retelling the Toin-Mana story. The kids may have enjoyed it and were cheering quite happily, but after her battle with Sasori, Sakura just couldn't look at any kind of puppet with shuddering.

"Are you cold?" Takuya asked with concern. Before Sakura could open her mouth to deny it, he'd unzipped his jacket and hung it around her shoulders.

"Oh – you didn't have to," she said quickly. "I'm not-"

"It gets cold in the desert when the sun goes down," he told her pleasantly. "You'll be wanting it later anyway."

"Oh, ok." She took a discreet sniff of the collar. It wasn't unpleasant exactly, but it just wasn't the same as Kakashi's smell. If this was Kakashi's jacket she would have been standing there with a silly grin on her face and rubbing her face unabashedly into the material, oblivious to the world around her. If Kakashi had a closet, it would probably be one of her most favorite places in the world to just sit and breathe.

But Takuya was just being kind, so Sakura did the polite thing and accepted with a gracious smile.

"You hungry?" he asked.

"I guess."

"I know this _great_ ramen place!"

It was at this point that it began to dawn on Sakura that she was making a very big mistake. She let him drag her away to a place very reminiscent of Ichiraku, with two street-side counters closing on a large canopied kitchen that emanated the unmistakable smell of ramen. Sakura ordered what she suspected was the least spicy dish on the menu, but she couldn't be certain with all these strange foreign names.

As they ate, Takuya talked. Takuya talked so much in fact that eventually Sakura lost track of what he was saying and just resorted to watching his mouth move, occasionally humming and nodding when she thought it was appropriate. In truth her thoughts were a million miles away. When Takuya mentioned his last promotion, she found herself thinking of her jonin inauguration. She remembered the party… when Naruto had passed out under her bed and Ino had coaxed a kiss out of a very reluctant and inebriated Sasuke, clearly under the mistaken impression that he was still interested in siring an heir. She remembered Kakashi, with his sausage on a stick and a silly smile in his eye as he told her to stop calling him sensei and start referring to him as Kakashi_-sama_. Their exchanges had been so much easier back then. Who would have thought that a whole year later with virtually no contact would have led them to…

"Sakura-chan?"

She blinked. "Sorry?"

"I said, have you ever thought about joining ANBU?" Takuya asked her.

"Oh – no!" She shook her head so hard with an embarrassed laugh that hair fell across her face. "I'm not subtle enough to be in ANBU, I'm afraid."

She was about to push those errant strands back into place, but Takuya's hand beat her to it. "You have really nice hair," he complimented, tucking it behind her ear. "It's so glossy and… eye-catching."

Sakura wondered if he was just being polite. She had more than her fair share of split-ends, and it was horribly dry and brittle some days. 'Eye-catching' was just a nice way of saying 'sore thumb'. Besides which, she wasn't sure she was too comfortable with his familiarity. She managed to refrain from leaning away from his hand, but searched for a way to distract him.

Takuya brought his hand away and sniffed his fingers. "It smells good too! What shampoo do you use?"

"Essence of Wildflower," she said quietly, staring at him. "I used to use Floral Green, but then I found out my sensei's dog user the same thing…"

"How awful for you."

"You have _no _idea. That's like finding out you use the same perfume as a…" she trailed off when she realized his hand was back to stroking her hair. Sakura didn't really now how to respond. She wasn't at all sure she liked it, but this _was _a date.

"So do you have a boyfriend back home I should know about?" Takuya asked pleasantly, finally pulling his hand back.

"N-no," she began uncertainly. "Well, no, not really. I've never had a boyfriend."

"Really?" He seemed surprised. "I can't imagine you'd have much trouble finding someone willing. You're so beautiful!"

"I-I-I-" Sakura stammered helplessly, blushing. "I was busy," she said a little defensively, noticing that he was beginning to sound like her mother when she went off on one of her '_why haven't you found a man yet and are you sure you're not a lesbian you certainly have a lot of male friends' _rants.

"That's no excuse," he teased.

"Well, I…" Why was his hand on her knee?

"How long are you planning to stay in Suna?" he pressed.

"I-I don't know," she said distractedly, looking around. "I think it depends on the Hokage-sama and what she-"

"Are you ok?" His hand was on her cheek, pulling her face back toward him. "You seem anxious."

"I'm fine!" She was _crowded_. His face was a little too close to hers, and her hand groped around the countertop for the nearest weapon she could find. It landed on a complimentary napkin. "Oh – look, you have sauce all over you chin! Let me just get that for you." She all but slammed the napkin into his face, making a show of wiping so thoroughly that he was forced back a little.

"You're so thoughtful, Sakura-chan," he said, though he looked as if he was wondering whether or not his lip had split.

"I know," she said abruptly. She scrunched up the napkin and threw it over her shoulder lest he realize there wasn't actually any sauce on it. "Thoughtful, thoughtful, that's me. And I – what are you doing?"

He was cupping each side of her head. "I just want to try something."

"I don't, um – what do you-" Her words were silenced when his lips met hers. Sakura leant back a little in surprise, but he only followed her and she was stuck in an awkward recline with a boy half draped over her, still kissing her.

Every time she received a kiss, she understood a little more how unique and different each kiss could be. Her first with Kakashi was mad; forceful passion that was almost automatic in nature – a kiss that had made her toes curl but had only been performed out of desperation and fear without any kind of natural build-up. Her second kiss had been soft and sweet, timid and restrained, but underlined with barely contained power that she still did not fully understand. Her third one – _this _one – well, that was something else entirely.

If she could visualize the distinctiveness of each of her kisses, then her first kiss would remind her of the puppet shows going on behind her back. The second was like facing down a snarling tiger whose raking claws were slashing away just inches away from her nose, held back only by a fraying leash. And her third…

Her third was like kissing a monkey who wanted the peanut she'd just eaten.

Sakura's teeth were clamped shut, determined not to let Takuya's tongue get any further. His lips plied at hers, but Sakura felt no burst of butterflies. There was no urge to sink into him like there was with Kakashi. No tingle of awareness or arousal. The only reason her heart was beating faster was because she was getting angry, and once more her hand began to grope the counter, seeking a weapon – seeking a bigger, heavier and slightly more sharper weapon that she could drive into Takuya's skull.

Her hand had just landed on a rather sharp chopstick when suddenly she found herself pushed back and staring at a wall of orange.

"Ramen, please!" Naruto shouted.

"Miso soup," Sasuke demanded from Naruto's other side.

The two had appeared as if from nowhere and had literally elbowed between her and Takkun to lean on the counter. There wasn't much room and she nearly found herself falling backwards off her stool. Then she made the mistake of shifting away, which invited Naruto to all but shunt her onto the next stool as he took her place. "Nice festival, huh?" he said loudly. On his other side, Sasuke had glared Takuya into a retreat, taking his seat the way Naruto had hers.

Even though she was grateful for their intervention, Sakura couldn't believe their gall. "What are you doing?" she hissed at Naruto.

He gave her a cool look and lifted his hand, showing her two coins splayed between his fingers. "Kakashi-sensei said he'd pay us twenty ryo each if we sat here. Can I have your ramen?"

Sakura's mouth dropped open. "What… you… _why_?"

Naruto looked affronted. "I like ramen," he said bluntly.

"No – why did Kakashi pay you to…" She broke off with a growl of frustration and tugged on her own hair. "I have to go."

When she stood up, Takuya looked at her in bewilderment. "Sakura-chan, what's going on?"

"I'm sorry, Takkun," she said, backing away as she shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it in his general direction. "I have to go. I need to talk to someone."

She hurried away through the crowds, dodging between dancers and skirting puppet displays and floating streamers. The music was loud, jarring her thoughts and confusing her sense of direction. She saw her hotel rising above the roofs further down the street and all but pushed people out of her way to get to it. When the crowds cleared enough for her to see the brightly lit entrance, she was accosted.

By Kakashi no less.

Like Naruto and Sasuke, he too appeared to come out of nowhere. He caught her arm first, making her jump, whirling her around to face him. "You seem to be in a hurry," he commented.

"You!" she roared, jabbing him with a finger. "I want a word with you!"

He nodded a little impatiently, as if she was wasting time. "Come with me."

"Where?"

"Just come." Without releasing his hold on her arm, he began pulling her along in his wake. Presumably he was finally ready to talk to her and he wanted a little more privacy so no one else would be able to hear her screaming at him. He pulled her down an alley and into a narrow walkway that ran behind the hotel and a row of other houses and buildings, and then turned off into another alley. Each corner they turned led them further away from the music and the people, and each alley seemed danker and darker than the last.

"Can we talk now?" she asked, trying to pull him to a stop, not liking the look of the new path he'd pulled her into. It was the kind she saw on TV where people got brutally murdered and left for dead behind trash cans.

"Not here," he said, yanking her arm almost a little too hard.

"Why not?" she demanded.

"Just a little further."

"Kakashi, I'm _really_ not happy, and you're not doing much to improve my mood," she ground out.

He didn't reply. Around another corner he tugged her until he finally drew to an abrupt halt, looking around as if it was a place he recognized. To Sakura it was just another grubby alley, barely wide enough for two people to walk down side-by-side, with two buildings rising high on each side making her feel like she was sandwiched between two cliffs. It was a little claustrophobic. But at least here Kakashi was finally ready to face her.

"Why did you pay Sasuke and Naruto to do that?" she demanded hotly, jabbing him again in the chest. He may have towered over her and he may terrify the living daylights out of some academy graduates – and even some fully-fledged jonin – but he did not scare her. Not with his hooded one-eyed stare or his head slightly tipped to the side and back so he could look down his nose at her. "What right did you have to interfere like that?"

"You certainly talk a lot," he said, rolling his eyes. Then he grabbed her by the back of the head, pulled his mask down and kissed her full on the lips.

Two kisses in one day was astonishing and a little disorientating. But if her first kiss that day reminded her of a furry primate trying to steal food from her mouth, this second one was like being sat on by a rhinoceros.

Kakashi kissed her so hard her head bent back and her lips squashed painfully against her teeth. She helplessly tugged at the collar of his jacket, trying to let him know she needed to breathe, but he only caught her wrists in a tight lock and held them immobile.

It was all wrong. Kakashi didn't kiss like this. He didn't have it within him to be so selfish. And Kakashi didn't _smell_ like this either. He was an indefinable blend of warmth and musk, and if scents had colors, Kakashi would be a deep, luxurious and majestic blue. The man forcing his tongue down her throat was a nauseating shade of saturated brown streaked with yellow.

Sakura pushed him away so abruptly that his back hit the alley wall hard enough to make it crack. She wiped her own mouth the back of her hand while reaching for one of the kunai stashed beneath her skirt with the other. "You're not Kakashi-sensei!" she accused angrily. "Who the _hell _are you?"

"You certainly took your time noticing," the man commented. He had Kakashi's voice, but the tone was unfamiliar. A tone Kakashi would never use. "How you became a jonin is a mystery. Hold her."

"What-" Before Sakura could react, arms stretched out of the rock wall behind her, clamping around her body and pulling her back. She was trapped. She scratched and bit at the limbs shackling her, but they seemed to have taken on the hard, texture of the stone from which they'd come. But that didn't matter. If there was one thing Sakura knew how to smash, it was stone.

Summoning her chakra, she prepared to release it, aiming to shatter the arms and cripple the sneaky bastards hiding in the wall behind her. But before she could gather it all she heard a sigh and a tsk. "No, no, we'll have none of that now."

Sakura heard the bang before she felt it. Pain bled through her skull like someone had cracked open an egg over her head. Her mouth opened in a silent cry as her vision dimmed and her body sagged. Someone had hit her. Hard. It was difficult focusing on anything other than the incredible pain, let alone controlling her chakra enough to aid her strength.

"Get the drugs in her," she heard someone say, sounding as if they speaking from very far away down a very long tube. "Don't give her an inch. That's all she needs."

Sakura gave a muffled moan of pain and fear as she felt herself pitched forward over someone's knee. Even though her woolly mind could hardly get its bearings she still had enough sense to be indignant and embarrassed when someone behind her flipped her dress up to expose her backside in all its plain-white-pantie glory. When the same person began tugging those panties down, she began to struggle in earnest, suddenly afraid she was about to be raped.

Beneath the pain roaring around her skull came a new pain, like a bee sting on her right buttock. She stiffened with a yelp, straining forward to get away from the sensation. There was a laugh, and then the pain was gone. A hand slapped her bottom where the needle had entered her and then gave it a quick rub.

"You like that huh?" Another distant laugh.

"Don't do that. She's Matsura's now."

There was hardly any sensation left in Sakura at that point. She couldn't summon the energy to get angry or react. She was surrounding by at least five men, whose blurry silhouettes seemed to get bigger and more menacing the further she sank towards the floor.

Whatever they'd put in her was putting her to sleep. She could feel claws rising up out of the darkness at the edge of her vision, trying to pull her down entirely. "No…" she breathed, knowing that to give in to the overwhelming urge to sleep would mean the end.

"Don't fight it," she heard someone say gently. He sounded so much like Kakashi that for a brief moment, she thought it _was _Kakashi. And that was all she needed.

She stopped fighting.

* * *

Phew... 10,000+ words!

TBC

* * *


	15. In which Kakashi overdoes it

* * *

_Even if you cannot hear my voice,_

_I'll be right beside you, dear…_

* * *

When Kakashi was eight, his father failed a mission. A very big, very important mission, that quite possibly was one of the last straws on the camel's back when it came to inter-village relations. 

It wasn't often that you could say, "Yes, my father _did _single-handedly start Secret-World-War-III that led to the deaths of countless ninjas and civilians. What are the odds!" Of course, if you had a lick of sense, you _didn't_ say this at all, especially in Suna. It was bad enough that in Konoha, the older generations hadn't _quite_ forgotten about his father's reputation (because as all ninjas know, you're only ever as good as your last mission), but in Suna, the White Fang had a near cult-like status. He was a regular bedtime story villain – the kind who would sneak into your room at night and slice off your ears for no apparent reason.

And while his father's deeds may have been exaggerated and embroidered for the benefit of scaring naughty children, apparently his appearance was something that everyone remembered quite accurately. Kakashi only had to walk down a typical Suna street and see every third person he passed give a double-take. Honestly it was like they'd never seen a white-haired, one-eyed, masked ninja with a blazing orange book of pornography in his hand before in their lives!

Which was why, after forking over forty ryo to his former prodigies, Kakashi retreated to the sanctity of his hotel room. Away from the crowds of Suna citizens and their incredulous eyes, away from the delicious smells of freshly baked sweets, away from his pestering students who wouldn't give him a moment's peace, and more importantly, away from Sakura and that… _boy_.

He had paperwork to do anyway. Every time a chunin exam came around, he was half tempted to nominate no one and save himself the work. Unfortunately, an irritating spec of conscience always managed to wrangle him into doing the right thing. He would always be the last to turn in the reports, of course, by a margin of at least two weeks. This gave him a lot of time to stare at the white paper scattered across his token hotel desk, put his feet up on said white paper and tilt his chair back to dangerous proportions while thinking of many other things he'd rather be doing.

Like certain pink-haired girls…

The wind had been picking up outside all evening, but at that moment a gust swept past the window so strong that it rattled the glass pane. Kakashi glanced up with disinterest. It was probably just a strong wind, but out in the desert, strong winds tended to lead to more dangerous events like sandstorms. Suna may have been tucked away in the craggy remnants of a canyon and relatively safe from harm, but something about the rattling wind made him uneasy. A whisper of trouble and a promise of danger.

Kakashi was not the superstitious kind. Superstition lacked rationalism and reason; the two things he valued above anything else. Even so, he had to admit the wind was a little ominous that evening.

A distinct crunch of wood alerted Kakashi to his second bad omen only a fraction of a moment before it arrived. Before he had a chance to react, the leg of his chair gave way and he found himself sprawled on his back with a thump and a soft 'oof'. He stared at the ceiling for a while after that, pondering the deep philosophical meaning of this new twist.

A more superstitious man might assume the Powers That Be were trying to warn him of something. But for the life of him he couldn't think what…

* * *

Sakura's head was pounding when she woke up. She could hardly breathe for the heavy cloth wrapped around the lower half of her face, and when she reached up to pull it down she realized her hands were tied. She was also upside down and the reason for the mask was probably to keep the airborne sand out of her lungs. Coughing and hacking, she hastily pushed the mask back up and cracked her eyes open to peer around. 

The world was a blur of yellow sand. It seemed to be everywhere – on the ground, in the sky, all over her sticky hair. She could see a pair of legs walking beneath her, and after a groggy moment she also realized that she was being carried over the shoulder of a particularly tall man.

"What…?" She pulled at the beige flak vest at the man's back, knowing she'd seen a uniform like it before. At that moment she couldn't place the memory. If she looked up she could just about make out a number of other man-shaped figures in similar dress through the blizzard of snow.

The fact that she was obviously bound hand and foot and being carried over the shoulder of a stranger should have alarmed her. But there was a strange distant, ethereal feel to the scene, as if she wasn't really part of it. The full impact of the situation didn't really hit her until she touched her hands to the sore, sticky spot on her head and her fingers came away with blood.

Immediately everything snapped into focus and she began to struggle, throwing her weight around so much that the man carrying her had to tighten his grip around her hips and thighs. When she tried to summon her chakra to break his grip, she found to her growing alarm that it wasn't there.

Normally her chakra flowed like water, flowing clean and easily, fast and free. It wasn't that her chakra was _gone_, exactly, as she could still feel it there inside her – she just couldn't use it. What was once like water was now like setting clay. As much as she screwed up her eyes and tried to concentrate, she could only pluck away at it uselessly. She hadn't had this much trouble manipulating her own chakra since she'd had the flu.

And now her head was swimming with the effort and she could barely see straight.

"Alright…" she said groggily, trying to sit up. "Which one of you bastards tried to kiss me and which one of you touched my ass?"

No one felt inclined to answer. Perhaps they hadn't heard her over the gushing sand.

"Where are you taking me?" she demanded a little louder.

Still no reply.

"I'll scream!" she warned.

When she was greeted by more stony silence, she went through with her threat and opened her mouth wide to let lose a shrill scream. Unfortunately she only managed to hold it for a few seconds before her poor head began throbbing painfully and she almost blacked out again. She felt like she was near death. "What have you done to me?" she rasped after a little of her voice had returned.

"Ensured you won't be using any of that special jutsu," the man carrying her said.

"I know you," she croaked. "You're Matsura Jin."

"I am."

"Oh, _god_…" she moaned, closing her eyes in despair. "What do you want with me? I didn't do anything to you! I just wanted that stupid vase – it wasn't anything personal! I'll even steal it back for you if you want! There's really no need for this-"

"This is also nothing personal," Jin replied evenly, his voice muffled by the high winds and sand. "This is simply my father's wish."

"_What_ is your father's wish?" she ground out.

"That you be brought before him and punished for what you did to him."

"_Urgh_!" Sakura began struggling with new vigor. Her chakra may have been unusable, but she wasn't willing to just lie over his shoulder like a carpet. "He _deserved _it and you know it! He was going to rape me! What the hell was I supposed to do – just _let _him?"

She kneed the man a few times in the chest during her struggles until he managed to hold her down more effectively. "This is pathetic!" she raged. "How come you're doing all his dirty work? Why is it always 'Jin do this' and 'Jin do that'? I've never seen your father do anything for himself. He treats you like his lackey and you just go along with it-"

"Be quiet," Jin snapped. "Or I'll drop you."

Unwisely, Sakura ignored him. "I saw the way he reacted when Kakashi-sensei went for him. He just stood there. He couldn't even raise his arm to block the attack, he was so slow. I could have moved faster than him and I'm not exactly the fast type. _You _had to save him! I saw it! Your father isn't the one with the real power is it? It's you! So why do you run around after him like some kind of lapdog when you obviously can do better-"

"Be silent!"

Sakura hit the sand with a jarring splatter. Sand went everywhere – in her eyes, in her mouth, up her nose and in the tender wound on her scalp. She alternatively choked, sneezed and moaned in pain and discomfort.

"You have no idea the pain and suffering you have put my father through during the last few weeks," Jin said, an indistinct shape somewhere above her. "What you have inflicted on him goes beyond torture. He deserves retribution, and I am giving it to him. And _you _need to learn respect for your elders. Someone else carry her."

Another man came forward and began hauling her over his shoulder. Sakura didn't like the pervy laugh or the way his hands groped her naked thighs and backside unnecessarily in order to hold her in place. "No – get off, you dirty freak!" she squirmed. "Jin-san, I'm sorry! I'll be good! Please, carry me again! Oh, get off me! Don't touch me there – _get off, get off, get off, GET OFF!_"

She wound up kicking and screaming so hard and loud that she was hauled straight off the man and onto a more familiar shoulder. It was an odd moment to find relief in being carried by the enemy, but at least Jin was not interested in trying to stuff his hand down her panties.

Not wanting to risk him getting annoyed at her and slinging her onto one of his more perverted underlings, Sakura didn't speak another word to Jin for a long time. Her consciousness drifted and the sandstorm only seemed to get worse as time wore on. She didn't know how long they'd been walking, but she knew it had to be the middle of the day. Judging by the fact that it had been evening when she'd been taken, they were probably quite far away from Suna by then.

Sighing miserably, she attempted to appeal to any slither of humanity that might reside in Jin's heart. "You can understand, right?" she whispered. "I was just trying to defend myself. I was scared. And it's not like I killed him."

"Sometimes," Jin replied coldly. "I'm sure he wishes you had."

Sakura nearly whimpered. "Please let me go."

But it seemed that Jin's heart was pure stone through and through. There was no soft side to appease to.

* * *

Sakura had been kidnapped a fair few times in her life – it was all part and parcel with being a kunoichi who happened to be close to some of Konoha's biggest names. People had attempted to snatch her on five separate occasions, due to her connections with Naruto, Sasuke, Tsunade and even Kakashi in an attempt to use her as leverage against them. But so far, no one had ever tried to kidnap her for her _own_ merit. She just wasn't important enough. 

And there was a stark difference between being taken as a hostage to get to her friends and being taken for no other reason than punishment for her own deeds. This time there would be no rescue attempts. It was unlikely that anyone knew where she was or was even aware that she was missing yet. By the time Naruto or Sasuke realized she was gone, Matsura might have already killed her. Kakashi wasn't likely to realize she was missing until someone told him. He'd probably just be wandering around in sheer relief that he hadn't bumped into her yet.

Whatever drugs they'd injected into her posterior the previous evening were still in full effect. Even after what could only be _hours_ of traveling, her chakra was still as feeble and unresponsive as before. Sakura knew of only two drugs that could immobilize the chakra outlets in the body. The first wore off after only a few hours, so it couldn't have been that one. It was more likely the second, which could last anything between twenty-four hours to seventy-two hours, and had added side-effects of fatigue of nausea. If the queasiness she felt had nothing to do with motion sickness, it was _definitely_ the drug they'd used on her.

It was unlikely she'd be getting her strength back any time soon. At least, not before the wind and the sand buried them alive.

Then suddenly the howling air was gone and Sakura could hear again. She opened her eyes and looked up to see towering ridges reaching up on either side of her, like they were walking into an alley not unlike the one she'd been attacked in. The blustering sands fell away, blocked by the rocks, and an almost eerie peace descended on the them. Sakura could hear each crunching football and scrape of sandals echoing off the vacant rock walls around them.

It was a labyrinth of some kind. Sakura lost track of the number of turns they took as they went deeper through the gaps and paths in the cliffs. Eventually the top of the rock walls met and melded together, forming a roof and blocking the sunlight, signaling their descent into deeper tunnels. Sakura stared around tensely as it grew darker and danker. She tried to remember the path, but they took so many turns that it quickly became apparent that without a trail of breadcrumbs, she would be hopelessly lost even if she managed to make a run for it.

"Why are we here?" she asked. The question rebounded off the walls up and down the length of the tunnel, repeating and echoing and probably grating on her captor's nerves.

"My father is waiting here," Jin replied tersely. Strangely, his voice didn't seem to echo.

"No – no – this isn't _fair_!" Sakura ground out, feeling so helpless and frustrated that she was on the verge of a very real tantrum. "Just let me go!"

"And return empty handed?" one of the men behind her scoffed. "I don't think so."

"Then just leave and run away and find lives of your own!" Sakura snarled. "Why are you obeyed this guy and his dad anyway? I know he doesn't respect your lives! I've seen the way he ploughs through his own men whenever they get in the way – no consideration whatsoever – you're all just canon fodder to him-" she broke off with a silent cry of pain and surprise as a loud slap resonated around the air.

"How _dare _you spank me!" she shrieked, struggling so ferociously that Jin had to stop or else overbalance.

"I'll do it again if you don't behave and keep your mouth shut," Jin warned just as fiercely. "You're acting like a child."

"I am _acting_ like a grown _woman _who has been kidnapped and repeatedly molested!" Sakura snapped. "I am _not _a child! Why does everyone keep saying that?! If you want childish, you should see the Hokage when we confiscate her gambling chips!"

"Wait – she knows the Hokage?" muttered one of the other men. He sounded nervous.

"I am her _apprentice_!" Sakura hissed at the man in question.

This did not comfort them in the slightest. "Hey, look," a man in a mask similar to Kakashi's held up his hands. "Personal retribution on a nobody is one thing, but no one said anything about kidnapping a kage's apprentice."

A _nobody_? Who were they calling '_a nobody_'? Sakura glared daggers at them, which might have been slightly more intimidating if she could see straight and her prolonged explosion of temper wasn't wearing her out so quickly.

"No one knows where we are and no one saw us," Jin replied simply. "There is nothing to link her disappearance to us-"

"Other than the fact that it's _obvious_," Sakura muttered spitefully. "I don't have many enemies."

Jin ignored her. "The Hokage is no threat to us."

"What about the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki?" Sakura pointed out. "He's a close personal friend. I – uh – I dated him! And the last Uchiha; I know him too. _And_ I know Sharingan Kakashi as well as the Kazekage!"

Contrary to her intention, this actually seemed to reassure the men. "Yeah, right," they scoffed. "Next you'll be saying you fought the Akatsuki and lived to tell about it."

"I did!" Sakura squeaked indignantly. But by then she was too tired to continue her physical struggles and sagged like a wet blanket over Jin's shoulder.

"Come on," he said to his men, and once more they were trudging through darkness.

Just when Sakura was beginning to think there was no end to these long tunnels and passages, or that Jin was just too proud to admit he was lost, she found herself dumped abruptly on a hard, stone floor. Her head seized in pain and she curled around the rising bile in her stomach. Her chakra still escaped her, so she couldn't even summon the energy to heal the wound on her head.

It took a moment to realize that the flickering light around her had nothing to do with the pain exploding behind her eyes. There was a campfire in the dead center of the chamber she was in, flicking and rolling in the cool breeze that swept through the tunnels. By this fire was man who was not part of Jin's little squad. But he was not Matsura. He was far too thin to be that man.

And yet when Jin addressed him, he had Matsura's voice, though a little weaker and more strained than she remembered. "You have her?" he rasped.

"Yes, father."

"Bring her here."

Sakura was seized by her bound wrists and dragged unsympathetically across the cold ground. She kicked and gasped as the rough rock snicked her dress and scratched her legs, but there wasn't much she could do. Dumped just two feet from the fire, she lay and trembled – more out of nerves than fear.

There was a squeak of stiff sandals and the sensation of hard fingers running through her hair. Sakura clenched her eyes shut, trying to push away the memory those fingers brought to the surface of the last time she'd felt them on her person. Another shudder of revulsion roiled through her and she nearly retched at the sheer physical intensity of her disgust. If he tried anything even remotely similar to the stunt that had lost him a great slice of his manhood, Sakura had a feeling the force of her own nausea would kill her long before Matsura ever did.

"Do you remember me?"

The sound of his low, slurred rumble pained her. How could she ever forget him? He haunted her dreams at night and ambushed her thoughts every quiet moment of the day when she was too tired to be preoccupied with thoughts of Kakashi. She'd never forget his voice, or his black, yellow-streaked smell and the gross disproportions of his form. She wouldn't be able to forget the feel his hard fingers violating her most private place for as long as she lived. Nothing short of a devastating blow to the head would knock that memory loose. Although, considering how hard Jin's men had hit her, apparently even _this_ drastic tactic wouldn't work.

The fingers in her hair tightened and Sakura's head was wrenched up at an awkward angle. Matsura's face loomed before hers, lit in the flickering orange light of the fire that made the shadows stretch across his features.

Features that looked oddly pulled and slack. Instead of the fat, gluttonous man she'd been acquainted with before, there was a gaunt old man. He'd lost an incredible amount of weight. She couldn't exactly call him thin, but he bore the look of a man who'd lost a lot of weight in a very short amount of time. Ill, emaciated, with skin that didn't seem to fit.

He looked as if he was dying.

"Shocked?" He sneered at her. "This is all your handiwork, you know. You might as well have killed me for the state you left me in."

Retorts like 'Who cares?' and 'You deserved it,' and 'Well, that's what you get for trying to rape me,' were comments that would likely land her in serious trouble. Shinobi Rule #19 clearly stated that when in a situation where the enemy had you at their mercy, it was best not to incite them with impetuous behavior. If she was Naruto she wouldn't have cared – he'd spit curses and blistering criticism at his enemy even if they had his neck on a chopping block. But Sakura did not have his confidence that things would turn out all right. For now she had to save her wise-ass cracks and play out the quiet, uninteresting captive act for as long as she could. And if she could convince them she was more timid then she actually felt, perhaps they would begin to underestimate her… to their cost.

"This is why kunoichi are an abomination," Matsura spat. "You have no concept of what is honorable conduct in battle."

_Screw _rule #19!

"Honor according _you_!" she snarled at him. "In what world is it honorable for a man to try and force himself on a girl less than half his age and size?! Only _you_ would consider it dishonorable for a girl to defend herself against _that_, while in fact most people think you're just a sick freak who really should have more than your balls cut off!"

For his emaciated state, Matsura at least still had most of his strength. He picked he up as if she was nothing more than a child's doll and threw her so hard she hit the cavern wall with an impact so hard that all she could see for a few moments was pure white as her lungs were stunned, unable to draw in breath.

Her sight cleared enough to see Matsura stalking towards her with a pronounced limp, at if someone had hammered a stake between his legs. "If you remember," she heard him say with growing rage. "You _did _cut off more than my balls! Did you forget? Do you need to be reminded?"

"No…" Sakura wheezed.

He was standing before her, unbuttoning his slightly too-big pants. "You should look at your handiwork. Then perhaps you will understand."

"No!" Sakura screwed her eyes shut. She was a medic. She'd seen some pretty horrific injuries in her life, but this was one injury she was truly terrified to witness. It only served to remind her of the circumstances in which it had occurred – something she was battling to forget every day.

"You will look!"

"I will _not!_"

Grubby, foul-smelling hands were on her face, prying at her eyelids. "Look at what you've done to me!"

Sakura tried to bite him. "Touch me again and I'll kill you!"

Suddenly his hands were snatched away from her face and she felt a hard and abrupt struggle take place next to her. A flailing foot caught her knee and she recoiled against the wall as her eyes flew open.

Matsura was being held immobile against the front of a second man, a kunai pressed firmly against his throat. Words could not describe the immense rush of gratitude and relief that washed through her when she recognized the back of his fluffy white head and the masked profile of his face.

"I'll have to concur with her," Kakashi said mildly. "Touch her again and you will die."

The reaction was instantaneous. Matsura's underlings shot tensely to their feet and Jin unsheathed his short sword. "Release him!"

Kakashi shook his head. "Now here's a phrase you've probably heard at least once before: Matsura-san, Jin-san, could you both please put away your pathetic little tools now. My hand is liable to slip at any moment."

Matsura hastily buttoned his pants with a speed that implied real fear. Sakura was revolted. _Some_ S-class criminal he was – trembling in fear beneath one little kunai! (Although, granted, Sakura would be a little shaky too if Kakashi pinned her with his same scary aura he was treating Matsura to).

"Now if you'd all like to drop your weapons," Kakashi suggested calmly, "I might be persuaded _not_ to slit this little shit's throat."

Matsura suddenly laughed. A weak, trembling and hysterical sound. "You think you've won, you little bitch? You think because your knight is here you're safe? You're both outnumbered vastly – me and my men will never let you – _aargh_!"

"I do apologize," Kakashi said rather insincerely, and although Sakura couldn't see precisely what he'd done, she did see the drops of blood that dribbled onto the floor beneath Matsura. "But speak to her again and I'll cut deeper. You have forfeited any right to even be in her presence, let alone speak to her. Now drop… your… weapons. It's a simple request."

Nodding hastily, Matsura gestured for his men to comply, but from the way they all looked at Jin before complying, it was clear who they were taking their cues from. Jin himself slowly lowered his sword to the ground and straightened with his hands slightly raised. "Now what do you plan to do?" he asked Kakashi.

"Depends," Kakashi shrugged.

"On what?" Jin demanded.

"On when exactly you plan to throw that shuriken hidden in your sleeve at my head."

Right then, it seemed. Quicker than the eyes could follow, Jin's arm moved and something small and black shot through to air towards Kakashi. The man ducked, releasing Matsura in the process as the shuriken hit the wall above Sakura and lodged there with a ringing clang.

Everything was going wrong. Matsura was stumbling away screaming "Kill them! Kill them!" and the shinobi underlings were picking up their weapons. They were aiming for her and Kakashi, and even though she knew Kakashi could dodge them easily enough, _Sakura_ _couldn't_.

As the first kunai launched into the air, heading straight towards her, Kakashi moved. She couldn't take her eyes of the kunai, even when Kakashi bundled her into his arms and plunged both of them into the wall. The dirk heading right between her eyes, getting closer as she stared it down, instantaneously disappeared as pure darkness swallowed them up. Sakura gasped as the temperature plummeted and clung onto Kakashi for dear life. She couldn't see, or hear and the pressure pressing in around her was so intense that she realized she would be trapped there forever if Kakashi let go of her now. She could barely even breathe.

Then just as quickly as it has swallowed her, the wall spat her back out. Cold, stagnant air flooded her lungs and a dim blue light lit the narrow tunnel they'd found themselves in. Kakashi quickly lowered her to the ground – and into a rather cold puddle – and in the unnatural blue light she saw him gather a kunai from the holster on his thigh.

"Are you alright?" he asked, cursory and perfunctory.

"Yes," she breathed.

"Mm," he grunted, evidently satisfied with her response. He seemed oblivious to her intense stare as he cut the bonds on her wrists and ankles and gently rubbed the pinched and numbed flesh. "Well, you'll be alright now."

He was so automatic and profession. He was so _silly!_

Sakura couldn't contain her wobbly smile as she pulled her hands out of his and grabbed him in a tight hug around the neck. Soft lips pressed against masked ones with a kiss of pure gratitude, relief and unspeakable pleasure at being alive. Kakashi didn't even bother resisting or protesting; it simply wasn't the time or place for such deluded acts. His arms enfolded her and held her just as tightly as she held him and returned the kiss with enough pressure to let her know he was just as pleased to see her.

"Yo," she said, smiling through her tears.

"Hello," he replied softly, echoing her smile.

She gulped and gave an embarrassed laugh as she wound her arms more tightly around him and buried her face in his shoulder. "You took your time! I was beginning to think I'd have to fight my way out all on my own. I could have taken them, you know."

"I know. But why should you get all the fun?" His face turned into her hair with a soft sigh, and she knew he was smelling her. That was ok. She was taking a liberal dose of his wonderful smell herself. It was rich and deep and as blue and majestic as it should have been, making her at once feel infinitely better than she had just a few moments ago when Matsura had been standing over her.

All at once she was struck by how _right_ this was. This was the way it should have been between them – no pretence or cagey dialogue, and certainly no cold shoulder. Every touch and word was honest and real. It was so simple and easy that Sakura momentarily couldn't understand why it would be so wrong to fall in love. Not that she could prevent something that had already happened.

"Kakashi, they gave me drugs," she said, pulling back to look him in the eyes. "I can't use my chakra or my strength and I'm all dizzy and icky and why are those blue glowey things on the ceiling moving."

"They're silk worms, Sakura."

"_Worms_…!" She shuddered convulsively. The dim blue light suddenly didn't seem quite so romantic and calming, and all she could think about were thousands of wiggly little creepy crawlies falling on her head should she make any sudden movements. "Please tell me you have backup."

"Against the worms? No." He shook his head. "Against Matsura… maybe."

"Maybe?" she repeated dubiously.

"By the time I realized you had been taken, the sand storm was already threatening to destroy the trail. I sent Pakkun back to fetch the others, but they would have been much further behind on the trail and I'm not sure if even Pakkun can track through such conditions. I barely caught up to you myself. So I've no idea if anyone else is coming."

"Assuming no one's coming," Sakura said slowly. "perhaps it would be best if we tried to escape now?"

Kakashi sighed remorsefully, and she felt his warm hand smooth her hair in a way that was almost tender. "Perhaps not."

Sakura was close to despairing. "I just want to go home, Kakashi," she whispered.

"We have to settle this, Sakura," he said firmly.

"Can't we settle this later? When we're not so badly outnumbered?"

"If we let Matsura get away now, the chances of ever finding him again are slim," Kakashi told her sharply. "ANBU went back to check on Matsura's compound after our mission, and it seems he's packed up and made a new base elsewhere. The moment we leave here he'll be gone again, and the next time we see him will be the next time he tries to get his revenge on you. We can't allow that to happen… _I _can't allow that to happen."

Sakura closed her eyes and marveled at just how nice it was to have her hair stroked at a stressful time like this. "What are you saying then?"

Quite seriously, Kakashi said, "We should probably kill him."

"I guess," she muttered reluctantly. "But-"

"It's not debatable," he said with a coldness that surprised her. "He is dangerous, and if we let him live now, we're giving him the chance to succeed next time he tries to hurt you. It's not about getting revenge on him, Sakura. He needs to be put down before he causes more trouble. It's a matter of efficiency."

She rolled her eyes. "Are you really sure it has nothing to do with revenge?" she asked.

"Well, perhaps a little bit. I won't be sad to see him die," Kakashi confessed. "But I wouldn't consider him worth the energy to kill if he didn't pose such a threat to you."

Sakura shook her head. "I don't think it's Matsura we have to worry about. It's his son."

"Jin _is _the stronger of the two."

"By _far_," she impressed. "I don't even think Matsura is up to the standard of S-class criminal. Maybe he was at one point, but he seems to make his men do most of his legwork."

"Be that as it may," Kakashi said, rising to his feet, "his influence over others is the main problem. He may not be as strong as he used to be, but he has the command of a few hundred men and he can send them after you at any time as we've already seen."

Sakura carefully climbed to her feet, aware of how weak her legs felt. "I know that," she sighed. "But I can barely stand. I _can't_ fight, Kakashi. I'd just be a hindrance if I tried, and I don't want you taking them on all alone. Last time that happened, you were beaten quite soundly. Remember the hip you broke? '_Blazing agony_', you called it."

"I was a little distracted that time," he said, a hint of defensiveness present in his tone. "There's some truth to rule #25. Emotions _do_ tend to complicate things."

"They work for Naruto."

"I'm not Naruto – for which I am still eternally grateful." He plucked one of the larger kunai from his holster and held it out to her. "And no shinobi is a hindrance until he or she is dead. As long as you can still move, you can still fight, otherwise I wasn't a very good teacher."

"You _weren't _a very good teacher," she pointed out.

"I know, but it sounded cooler that way."

Sakura rolled her eyes at him, but the effect was probably lost in the dim light. She knew how stubborn Kakashi could be when the situation arose, and so could nothing more than snatch the kunai from his hand with a jerkiness that underlined her displeasure. "If we die…" she warned icily.

"If we die, I will admit I was wrong."

"Good."

"But we won't, because we can't afford to," he reassured as he took her hand in his. His fingers were cold, but hers were colder. "Now, come on."

He led her away down the tunnel, away from the tiny blue lights (much to Sakura's relief) and right into complete darkness (not so much to Sakura's relief). Perhaps Kakashi had better night vision than she did, because the only reason she knew where to tread was because he was guiding her. She could see nothing beyond the end of her own nose, and the uneven ground was deeply disorientating. She was reluctant to feel along the wall because she kept wondering how many other unseen slimy worms there were in this tunnel that she couldn't see.

"How did you know?" she whispered through the pitch black air.

"What?" Kakashi's hushed voice echoed quietly.

"How did you know I was gone?"

"Well, you see… my chair kind of fell over and then-"

"This isn't another one of your convoluted lies designed to repel interest, is it?"

"…I don't know what you mean."

"What does a chair falling over have to do with-"

"If you didn't interrupt I'd be able to tell you," he replied loftily. "So I was on the floor, thinking about bad omens, when Naruto and Sasuke barged in to tell me some… uh… good news about a little assignment I had given them. They mentioned that you had been heading my way before them, so I was a little concerned about why you hadn't arrived. I looked around for you and I caught your scent outside the hotel and I just sort of followed it from there. By the time I realized you hadn't just gone for a long walk, I was halfway out into the desert being buried in sand. I sent Pakkun back and followed your trail alone."

"My scent trail?" she whispered, horrified. "Oh, god… I don't smell that strong do I?"

"Mm… well, everyone does in a way."

"Oh, _god_."

"It isn't a _bad _smell, Sakura," he said. But he seemed reluctant to expand upon that point and quickly changed the subject. "Either way, if that chair hadn't broken, I might not have had the mind to go look for you. Perhaps it was a sign from above warning me you were in trouble?"

"That, or warning you to lose weight."

"I walked into that one, didn't I?"

She nodded emphatically, even though he probably couldn't see her. "I think your genius is exaggerated, Kakashi-sensei."

"It usually is." He drew to an abrupt halt, causing her to crash into his back. "Here."

"What?" she murmured, not understanding.

"Brace yourself." Then with a firm tug of her hand, she found herself pulled straight into the wall for a second time. It was just as unpleasant as the first time, and even more distressing since her only link to Kakashi was their joined hands. She squeezed him tightly, determined not to lose that one contact in the void, and was rewarded with a light answering squeeze.

Cool air hit her face once more as she was dragged straight out of the wall. She caught sight of a dozen or so men reacting and shouting at their sudden appearance before smoke quickly filled the air, courtesy of one of Kakashi's smoke bombs. That was when his hand left hers and he vanished into the thick, pungent smelling screen of smog. She lifted the kunai in her hand defensively. She knew she was back in the chamber she'd been in before and she knew that Matsura was in there somewhere. They only had to neutralize him and then they would be able to go back home.

A blurry, indistinct shape hurtled out of the smoke toward her. She may have had no chakra and her limbs may have been shaking with fatigue and weakness, but she reacted fast enough to dodge the outthrust katana and used the man's momentum to make the impact of her knee in his gut that much more painful. A quick jab to the back of his neck with her kunai certainly wouldn't kill him, but at least it would ground him for a while.

The smoke was beginning to clear, and the hard thumps and grunts of fighting nearby soon became visible. And even though he was barely more than a silhouette, Sakura knew Kakashi's figure anyway. He was outnumbered, but far from outmatched. He moved like a dancer, as if he'd been practicing the choreography for this fight for years, though it wasn't what she'd call elegant or graceful. Not one foot was out of place as he spun, kicked and threw his opponents into each other in a curt, brutal fashion. There was no messing around here. He had a goal and he was taking the shortest road to get to it.

The fighting disappeared once more as another smoke bomb went off, but Sakura didn't know who had detonated it. She peered around, uncertain of what to do. She hated hanging back and leaving Kakashi to do the brunt of the work, but the smoke was making her feel sick and the dizziness certainly wasn't helping. Indistinct shapes moved throughout the smoke, making her flinch. She knew that she was a sitting duck if she stayed put, and so began circling the circumference of the cavern with her back to the wall and her eyes peeled on the chaos spreading out before her. A flicker of movement caught her attention a second too late, and before she could react, she found herself struck to the floor with a sword arcing straight toward her chest, intending to skewer her to the ground. Sakura had no doubt that would have been her fate had an enormous dog not leapt straight over her and fastened its jaws around the throat of her attacker with the most ferocious snarls she'd ever heard.

"Stay alert!" she heard Kakashi scold her from what seemed to be three different locations at once. She could only hope he was using kage bunshin or her dizziness was even worse than she feared.

Vainly, Sakura tried to struggle to her feet. The impact that had knocked her to the ground had winded her, and the moment she sat upright her whole stomach lurched and twisted, forcing her to double over again and retch heavily. The nin that had attacked her was still struggling with the large black dog attempting to tear his throat out, and in his panic he'd dropped his sword. Sakura reached for it, hoping it was serve more purpose than the piddling little kunai Kakashi had given her.

But before her fingers could close over the hilt, another hand swept into sight and snatched it from her grasp. Sakura looked up. Leveling the sword at her now was the shriveled old goat who'd got her into this mess, and the smirk on his face was enough to make her want to retch again.

"Copy-nin, you can stop now!" Matsura roared. "Make one wrong move and I'll cut her eye out."

Sakura couldn't take the embarrassment. Her forehead hit the floor in a mixture of frustration and a sincere attempt to hide her utter shame. She'd _told_ him she would have been a hindrance in this state. Had he listened? No. Because he was _Kakashi! _Honestly, she would have been more use if he'd simply buried her in sand and told her to wait. She barely had the energy to stand at this point.

The smoke cleared and settled. Revealed in the midst of it all was an array of casualties and a remarkably calm looking Kakashi.

Jin was behind him, more out of breath than Sakura had ever seen him. The smoke had clearly hindered him, and now that it was clear he wasted no time in trying to regain control. "Hands up," he ordered.

"Ok." Kakashi cheerfully complied.

"Drop the kunai and put your hands on the back of your head."

"Certainly." Kakashi dropped his weapon with a clatter and linked his fingers together atop his hair.

"Now get on your knees."

"I'd rather not," Kakashi told Jin. "I have a bit of arthritis in the left one. An old injury, you understand."

Jin's response was to kick out the back of his knees, making Kakashi fall forward with a dismayed sigh. There he sat on his haunches, hands above his head with his eyes closed, seemingly at complete peace for how vulnerable they were. He was practically meditating.

"Perhaps you should have tried to escape while you had the chance?" Matsura suggested nastily. "Who knows? Maybe you would have lasted at least ten more minutes before my men tracked you down again."

"Don't be ridiculous," Kakashi said placidly, eyes still closed. "The sand storm would have killed us in five."

"You're excessively modest," Matsura said, sounding very disgruntled. "It's highly irritating."

Kakashi apologized swiftly. "Sorry."

"Urgh." Matsura gestured toward his son. "Kill him. He's just being a nuisance."

"Don't I get a last request?" Kakashi asked.

"No!" Matsura snapped.

"Father," Jin's voice held a hint of warning, "it's customary."

"Damn you all!" he raged, slashing his sword irritably, close enough to Sakura's face that she could have sworn the sharp breeze from the blade's wake sent a few pink hairs fluttering to the ground. "Well, spit it out – but nothing unreasonable!"

"I just want to say goodbye to Sakura-chan, that's all," Kakashi said with a hangdog shrug. However, Sakura didn't believe it in the slightest. There was simply no way that Kakashi would give up this easily and resign himself to death.

"You can do it from here," Jin pointed out.

"Naturally." Kakashi squared his shoulders and breathed deeply before saying, in a slightly louder voice. "Bye, Sakura-chan!"

"Bye…" she echoed.

"It was nice knowing you."

"I guess…"

"But we had some fun times, didn't we?"

"I can't remember any off the top of my head," she deadpanned.

"What? Not even that little vacation we had in the thunder country?"

Sakura had only ever been to the thunder country with team 7 once and it was the furthest thing from a holiday she'd ever had to endure. She'd been a chunin at the time, and they had barely escaped their mission to that country alive. Naruto would have died had it not been for his own superior healing speed, and Kakashi wound up in bed for a whole month after having used his mangekyou sharingan for too long. Of course, they would all have died if he hadn't used it, but Sakura hated the sight of him so weak and exhausted that he didn't even have the energy to read his silly books. It was one of the least fun times they'd ever had together. So why did he bring it up now?

Unless…

Catching on, Sakura scowled at him. "Sure. But I wouldn't want to do it again."

"Well, in that case, consider yourself fortunate that we're probably about to die." He opened his eyes and winked at her with his right eye, drawing her attention to a sharingan that seemed darker than usual.

"No 'probably' about it." Matsura grunted. "Are you done yet?"

"One last thing," Kakashi promised. "Sakura?"

"Yes?" she replied tensely.

"I love you, really," he said softly. "But you _do _insist on getting in the way sometimes."

Sakura snatched a quick glance at an impassive Jin and his posse of gormless wonders. She looked back at Kakashi but his eyes were on Matsura only.

"That was kinda rude…" one of the underlings whispered.

"Yeah," another one agreed.

That was only because they didn't understand.

Taking a deep breath, Sakura suddenly rolled away from Matsura and threw herself toward the nearest stalagmite, wrapping her arms around the cold, jutting formation. Instantaneously she heard a resounding scream tear from Matsura's throat and felt the unnatural pull of gravity tugging at her frame.

When she spared a glance over her shoulder, she could see that Matsura was in agony. His whole body was contorting, squeezing toward the pinpoint of black that had fixed on his chest like a hole. The air around him was warping and twisting toward that single point, dragging in the light and distorting the air, even Matsura's screams seemed broken, as if they were also being pulled into that hole.

"What's going on?" one of the men shouted. "What's happening to him?"

A brighter man had figured it out. "It's doujutsu! The Copy Ninja – kill him!"

"Kill me and this whole cave gets swallowed up!" Kakashi shouted. His breathing was labored and his body was shaking, but he still had the presence of mind to deliver an enormous bluff. But what Sakura knew was an obvious lie made Jin and his men pause uncertainly. Having never dealt with anything like this before, none of them knew what to do.

"Jin-" Matsura's broken voice came through. "Help-!" He's managed to twist himself slightly away from the center of the distortion, enough for his body to escape it. But he was left trying to stab his sword into the ground and hang on for dear life as the justu continued to pull at him, elongating his image and dragging him steadily closer to what could only be oblivion. The pull began to intensify, making Sakura's hair begin to hang sideways. If she let go of the stalagmite now, she would probably get pulled in alongside Matsura.

"Jin!" Matsura shouted again, more angrily than before.

Jin could no longer stand by impassively. It seemed he didn't dare call Kakashi on his bluff and strode purposefully past the crouched man to reach his father. The distortions began to pull at his body too, but he resisted well. When Sakura saw him reach for his father's hand that was clasping desperately at his sword, she wanted to scream. He was going to save the bastard and then Kakashi would be too exhausted to try again! "Don't!" she screamed at him, hoping that for some reason he would take the advice of an enemy over the life of his own father.

Jin's hand closed over his father's and pulled it free of the sword, holding him steady. Kakashi fell forward on one hand with a pained gasp. The jutsu was still focused and gaining intensity, but Sakura didn't think his body could take much more.

Then Jin let go of his father.

Sakura could only watch in shock as Matsura was jerked back, squashing to grotesque proportions as his arm, head and back were crushed into the spiraling hole. The rest of his body soon followed, slipping away so suddenly and easily it was hard for Sakura to wrap her head around. But the sudden disappearance of his father, Jin was also beginning to be pulled in. He too would have disappeared head first into the black hole if it hadn't suddenly vanished with a thin sucking sound. The breeze that had been blasting through the cavern suddenly ceased and Kakashi crashed onto his side, pressing a hand over his sharingan, his frame stiffened in so much pain he could scarcely breathe.

Not caring that they were now both at the mercy of Jin and his men, Sakura got to her feet and stumbled toward Kakashi. She landed on her knees beside him, automatically trying to summon healing chakra to her hands that simply wasn't there. There was nothing she could do anyway. She couldn't heal exhaustion and she didn't know where to begin with something as odd and alien as the sharingan. But it wasn't like she could just sit back and watch him gasp and pant in pain while he clawed at his own eye as if he wanted it out.

"Calm down, it's ok," she lied, placing one gentle hand on his arm and the other beneath his ear to cradle his head off the ground. "Calm down and just breathe. Let me see your eye."

He didn't comply easily, keeping his hand pressed hard to his face like a child while she tried to pull it away. She caught a glimpse of blood weeping from under his scrunched up, scarred eyelid. Immediately she released his hand and let him cover it again. It was getting worse. Every time he used it he did more damage to himself. She had no idea what a bleeding sharingan meant, but she knew from the dark stain gathering on the mask beneath his nose that the mangekyou had wrecked more damage that was immediately visible. She hoped it wasn't as bad as she feared.

A shadow fell over them and Sakura looked up, instinctively leaning over Kakashi and spreading her free arm over him protectively. Jin met her scowl with an apathetic stare.

"You don't have to look at me that way," he said, dragging his words. "I told you before it wasn't anything personal."

"You just killed your own father," she whispered, in case that fact had escaped him.

"No. _He_ killed my father," he murmured, looking to man beneath her.

At that moment Kakashi's body gave a mild shudder and he went still, his head falling lax onto her hand. Sakura's blood ran and she gathered him closer until he was virtually in her lap. He was still breathing, but he pulse was heavy and slow, throbbing throughout his body so hard that she only had to touch him to feel it. She looked up at Jin with fresh resolve. "It wasn't anything personal," she said in a low tone. "So now what are you going to do with us?"

Jin looked as if he was deliberating the answer to this question, but before he could open his mouth to speak, there was a deafening bang and the whole cavern shook. Rocks and clods of dirt began raining down and Sakura threw her hands up to shield bother herself and Kakashi. The darkness of the underground room was suddenly torn away as light began flooding over them in growing shafts. There was so much debris flying around it was hard to see what was going on. She only knew that the ceiling of the cavern was being ripped off.

Eventually the shaking stopped and everyone blinked up at the blinding light spilling down into the chamber like hermits who hadn't seen daylight in years. Sakura could barely make out anything; the light hurt her eyes. But after a moment something moved into sight, nothing more than a pale silhouette against a white background. Her eyes slowly adjusted, enough for her to realize it was Sasuke.

"Who are you?" Jin demanded.

"The last heir of the Uchiha," Sasuke replied coolly, not having to raise his voice much to be heard. "And you?"

Another figure appeared beside him, clad in unmistakable orange. "Don't be so freakin' dramatic, Sasuke!" He gave the Last Heir of the Uchiha a rather impertinent poke in his most ticklish rib, making the other boy jump out of his skin and send Naruto a glare that would have killed a lesser man stone dead.

A third person appeared on the lip of the hole. Gaara. And then Shizune, Ino, Shikamaru, Tsunade, Temari, Sai, Yamato, and then too many people for Sakura to count or recognize. A sob of relief bubbled out of her throat before she could stop it and she hugged Kakashi tighter. At least with Tsunade and Shizune there, he would be in safe hands.

Jin looked around at all the new arrivals and gave the kind of troubled sigh that would have given Shikamaru a run for his money. "That's it for me, I think," he muttered, barely audible to Sakura's ears. She saw him whip a scroll from his pocket and open it with a snap. With one last, unimpressed glance in her direction, he pressed his hand over the seal on the parchment and vanished in a whirl of smoke and dust.

The reaction from the underlings who _hadn't_ been given their own little emergency teleportation scrolls was venomous. "That rat-eyed _bastard_!"

They were quickly subdued by a mixture of Konoha and Suna ANBU before they could try and escape themselves. Naruto was the first to drop down into the cavern to come hurtling over to where Sakura knelt beside Kakashi. "Sakura-chan! What happened? Is Kakashi-sensei, ok?"

"Tsunade-shishou needs to look at him. I'm not sure how bad it is," she confessed, her eyes far wetter than they needed to be.

"Are you ok?" Naruto crouched next to her, hand on her shoulder and eyes full of blue concern and anger. "Where's the bastard who took you? Me n' Sasuke will go kill him!"

She shook her head. "Kakashi already took care of him."

"What about the one that just disappeared?" Naruto demanded.

"I don't think we have to worry about him," she whispered. "He's not interested in us."

Tsunade was beside them in seconds, shooing them away as she carefully rolled Kakashi onto his back. "Give him some room to breathe – that's it." She checked his pulse and peered in both his eyes. "Let me guess… her overdid it again? He's in a _very _deep sleep and he's not responding to light. There's nothing more we can do here. We need to get him into a hospital bed," she concluded, before looking up and shooting a similarly critical gaze at Sakura. "You too. You're as pale as a sheet."

"I'll be fine," Sakura replied, passing a shaking hand over her eyes.

"So will he," Tsunade reassured. "Don't worry. You both did well. Let's just get you both home now."

* * *

TBC

* * *

A/N: Reviewing normality should be returned next chapter. :3 


	16. In which Sakura's underwear is mislaid

* * *

_Sometimes you breathe_

_All over my scar_

_And you always end up_

_Closer than close_

_That's when I give in_

* * *

Out of all the original members of team seven, Sakura would have to say that Kakashi was the lamest duck when it came to ailments. Of course, anyone would look frail when compared to Naruto with his bizarrely fast healing patterns (a broken leg for Naruto, once set, would be as good as new by breakfast the next day), or Sasuke with his incredibly high tolerance for pain (he would view a katana through the chest as a mere flesh wound), and Sakura with her self-healing skills almost on par with Tsunade's. For all his brains and talent and speed, Kakashi's body was the one thing that often let him down the most. Sakura didn't know if he had naturally lower stamina than the rest of them, or if it had something to do with possessing a bloodline limit that didn't belong to him. Sakura didn't know of a single other person in the same boat as Kakashi, so she couldn't exactly compare his case to others.

And it wasn't just his physical stamina that suffered. When Kakashi fell ill, he fell hard. The last time he caught flu, he'd been admitted to hospital for nearly two weeks because he'd looked so sorry for himself, whereas someone like Naruto would have been able to carry on his missions as usual with only a mild sniffle. Sure, Kakashi always _said_ he was fine, and that he was able to continue his work, but then he'd do something stupid like pass out in the middle of grocery shopping. Confining him to a hospital bed was more to force him to take it easy than anything else. If they let him go home, they all knew perfectly well that he would be brought in the next morning by neighbors who had found him unconscious in the stairwell.

But for however ill Kakashi got, he always bounced back to full strength like clockwork. Even when he was at death's door after a particularly savage mission, he would always steadily claw his way back to health again. He might take longer than the average person, but he _always_ recovered, regardless of whether it was a common cold or overzealous use of the mangekyou sharingan.

Except Sakura had never known it to be _this_ bad before…

The moment Tsunade had deemed her fit enough for discharge, she'd gone straight to the other end of the hospital to see Kakashi. Only he wasn't being particularly talkative due to the fact he was in a _coma_.

"I wouldn't really worry about it," Tsunade said, sounding so offhand and bored that Sakura was inclined to trust her. "You know perfectly well that this man won't do things by halves – plain sleep just isn't good enough for him. I estimate he'll wake up pretty soon, he's already showing signs of responsiveness. So I choose to see this as a more fortuitous situation. At least this way he won't be wandering off trying to discharge himself. He needs to relax and let himself heal."

Sakura peered closer at the sleeping man, noticing someone had wrapped a pristine white bandage around his head, covering his left eye. "What happened to the sharingan?" she asked her teacher.

"It's fine," Tsunade said dismissively. "The sharingan itself is as good as ever, but the optical nerve and some of the surrounding tissue was damaged. I daresay it won't have done his eyesight that much good even after I healed it. When he wakes up I plan to prohibit him from using the mangekyou again. Obviously he doesn't understand the meaning of the word 'moderation'. Poor Obito… I think he had more untapped potential than even Kakashi could ever handle."

"Obito?" Sakura frowned at her. "Who?"

Tsunade just smiled, pushing a blond lock away from her face. "You can stay if you want. Suna has no limits on visiting hours. But wouldn't she rather be back at the hotel enjoying room service?"

Sakura shook her head. "I'd rather stay with him until he's better. He's in this mess because of me… I feel indebted to him."

"Indebted?" Tsunade repeated with a private smirk. "Is that what kids are calling it these days?"

"What?" Sakura had no idea what that was supposed to mean.

Tsunade rolled her eyes at the girl. "I have genins to review. Summon me if he wakes up." With a fleetingly secretive smile, Tsunade waved her hand and strode out. Sakura watched her leave, utterly stupefied as to what her teacher could have been implying.

* * *

It had been a day since they had returned to Suna. Sakura had spent most of the night in a hospital bed of her own, being violently sick every few hours as the chakra-suppressing drug began to fade from her system. And while she was now very much in control of all her faculties once more, her head still had the occasional twinge of pain, and even the slightest change in expression could have the stitches along her scalp tugging unpleasantly.

However, she had been unable to think of no-one else besides Kakashi. Even as she had doubled over a clay basin, retching but unable to bring anything up, she had worried and fretted over how bad Kakashi's condition was. She had asked Tsunade how he was doing, but the older woman would always be infuriatingly vague. Now that Sakura was at his side, she had no intention of leaving it – not until she was certain that he was getting better.

He was certainly taking his time about it though, so Sakura felt free to put her feet up on the edge of his bed and turn on the television. The only shows on were mostly of wind country origin, and the humor was, sufficed to say, _different_ than what she was used to. Eventually she grew bored trying to figure out the jokes and turned the television set off to sit in silence. It was a silence that consisted of the faint tinkling of the wind chime that hung in the open window, swinging softly in the breeze and the distant buzz of street-level activity and conversation. Within the room was the soft hum of electrical equipment, and (if she pulled her chair closer to Kakashi's bedside) the soft sounds of Kakashi's unnaturally deep breathing as he slept on, oblivious to her presence.

Heaving a sigh, she leant forward till her elbows rested on the mattress by his shoulder. "Please wake up soon," she pleaded softly, toying with his hair with her fingertips. "But don't hurry on my account. I'm finding this to be a _vast_ improvement to your personality. This could be the longest you've ever gone without picking up an Icha Icha book."

Kakashi slept on blithely.

Moving to rest her chin on her forearm, Sakura began playing with the edge of Kakashi's mask. "I know you can probably hear me," she said conversationally. "Remember that time Neji-kun got that head injury last year? He was in a coma for nearly a whole two weeks and when he woke up he was claiming that he'd heard TenTen whispering her undying love for him at his bedside. Poor TenTen was so embarrassed. But don't worry… I won't be confessing my undying love for you. I think I already made a fool of myself by doing that the night before the exams anyway."

Although, she hadn't been the only one to utter the words 'I love you'. She seemed to recall he'd said it to her in the same breath he'd told her to duck out of the way of the mangekyou sharingan. Understandably, a lot had been going on at the time and she hadn't been able to appreciate it's meaning. Now that she had the time, she found herself stumped.

"I wonder… did you mean it when you said you loved me?" she murmured, smoothing the backs of her fingers down the right side of his face and over his mask. "Or were you just…" Being whimsical? Being capricious? Acting? "If you meant it, don't do anything at all. If you didn't mean it, you can sit up right now and tell me so."

Much to her delight, Kakashi chose to do continue being comatose, which was obviously his way of saying he loved her to the ends of the earth and back! "Excellent!" she proclaimed happily.

But the thrill of her hollow victory was short-lived. Another sigh escaped her lips as she leaned further forward to examine his lax face. "Tsunade says you're not to use the mangekyou sharingan anymore," she said, wondering if she could psychologically imbed the idea on his subconscious mind. "If you keep using it, you'll start to go blind. And then you'll have to wear glasses." She thought about that for a moment. "Although… I suppose you would only go blind in one eye, so you'd have to wear a monocle instead. I think it would suit you, don't you? You're a 'monocle' kind of guy. Yeah, I can see you carrying it off."

Whether Kakashi agreed or not was unknown, but Sakura's stomach was beginning to rumble. She whispered an apology to the bed-ridden man and slipped out of the room to hunt down some food. After a few minutes she reappeared with a plateful of fruit – fruit being the only thing she'd recognized on the cafeteria menu that was edible. But the moment she stepped through the door and laid eyes on Kakashi, she gave a sigh of frustration.

He'd fallen out of bed.

"Oh, you silly man…" she admonished, setting down her plate on the floor before rushing over to him. By the way the blankets were wrapped around him, it seemed that he'd actually tried to stand up. Now he was just slumped unconscious on the floor with his IV drip tugging dangerously at his hand. "What am I going to do with you, Kakashi? If you make a habit out of that, they'll put restraints on you, ya know?"

At times like this, great strength was a wonderful thing. Under the influence of those chakra-suppressing drugs she would never have been able to lift him alone and set him back on the bed as she did then. She mothered him mercilessly, tucking in his blankets firmly around him and making sure the IV needle hadn't slipped out during his brief attempt at escape. She was just rearranging his hair in an eye-pleasing way over his bandages when the door opened.

"Sakura-chan!" Naruto looked surprised to see her. Sasuke, behind him, never looked surprised at anything.

"Hi," she waved at them cheerfully.

"We just went to check on you but the nurse said you'd been discharged," Naruto said, moving toward her. "Shouldn't you be resting? You looked really ill yesterday!" He ended this by pulling her into an enormous bear-hug.

"I feel fine! Really!" She patted him on the back to let him know she needed to breathe some time. "I just didn't want to leave Kakashi-sensei on his own."

"Is he ok?" Naruto asked worriedly, leaning over the unconscious man.

"He will be," she said. "Once he wakes up."

"What's wrong with him?" Sasuke asked from the doorway. He wouldn't dare come any closer than that, because doing so might imply that he was actually _concerned_ about his former teacher. And that would never do.

"He's in a coma," Sakura told him. "But Tsunade reckons he's already waking."

Naruto frowned at Kakashi. "He doesn't look very 'waking' to me. Is he really in a coma?" He gave Kakashi's collar bone a firm prod of curiosity and nearly leapt a foot in the air when Kakashi's arm came up in a half-hearted attempt to push him away. "He _is_ awake! Look!"

"Please don't poke the sick, Naruto," Sakura told him sharply. "He's not really awake. He's still suffering a light comatose."

"Or just incredible laziness," Sasuke retorted dryly.

"Always a possibility." Sakura shrugged. "But he'll wake up when he's ready to."

"Maybe if one of us made a really loud noise?" Naruto suggested thoughtfully.

Sasuke gave him a flat stare. "You are a true loss to the medical profession, you know that, right?"

Naruto ignored the put-down. "Maybe one of us should kiss him? That usually makes people in comas wake up."

"In _movies_," Sakura pointed out.

"It's worth a shot!" he protested.

"No, it isn't!" both Sakura and Sasuke chorused.

"Well, if you won't, I will." He began moving forward, only to be collared by Sakura and dragged back.

"You don't really care about that – you just want to see his face," she accused frostily.

From his guilty look, it seemed she'd hit the nail on the head. "Is that a crime?"

"That's called 'taking advantage'," she pointed out.

"A few weeks ago you wouldn't have minded," Naruto said with a pout. "You used to be just as eager as everyone else to see his face. Now that you've seen it, you want to keep it all to yourself and lord it over the rest of us."

That was part of the reason, true, but there was more to it than that. "Kakashi let me see his face willingly. I didn't violate his trust by exposing him while he was helpless. He's not comfortable with people seeing his face, Naruto. Come back and ask him when he's _not_ in a coma."

"You're only saying that because you _like_ him," Naruto argued.

Sakura momentarily spluttered, at a loss for words. It wasn't like she could deny it, as everyone else in the room was fully aware of her feelings. Instead she opted for a short, sharp, "_So?_"

Silence descended on the room as Sakura and Naruto attempted to outstare each other in a quiet battle for dominance. Eventually Sasuke broke it by moving forward and saying in an even voice, "What the idiot means to say, is that we know what's going on."

Sakura's intense gaze became hesitant and confused. "What?" she asked him.

"We know something is going on between you and him," Sasuke said simply.

"How he knew you were missing before anyone else did," Naruto supplied.

"And that Pakkun mentioned he looked more upset about your disappearance than he'd ever about anyone else's."

"And why he actually offered us money to do something we were going to do anyway."

"And why the first place we find you after you've been given a clean bill of health is here, right at his bedside."

"And why your face is getting redder and redder the more we point it out."

Sakura pressed the cool back of her hand to a heated cheek and turned hastily away from the pair of boys, attempting to look as if she was examining the medical equipment. "You're both delusional," she said shortly.

"_Something_, is going on, Sakura-chan," Naruto implored. "You can tell us. We're your friends, aren't we?"

Of all the cheap tricks to pull on her… _that_ had to be the lowest. He knew perfectly well that there was no question about the strength of their friendship, and he knew that pointing that out was a better interrogation technique than any torture method.

"There really isn't anything going on between us," she said in a low, honest tone. "I like him. I think I _love_ him. And he knows it. That's all."

She looked back at the boys to see them trading skeptical glances. "And?" Naruto prompted.

"And what?" she asked tiredly.

"And his feelings for you?" Sasuke asked carefully.

From the way they were both watching her, it was clear they were equally anxious. They could dismiss her feelings as fleeting infatuations (even though there had been nothing 'fleeting' about any of her past infatuations to make them think this) but Kakashi's feelings? She could see that they didn't like this possible relationship. Putting herself in their shoes, she was sure she would feel the same. They were naturally jealous of any other male who threatened to take priority in her heart, but she could see they were concerned too. Concerned because Kakashi was older – old enough to know how to use a girl and toss her aside once he was bored with her. She knew because it concerned Sakura too. Part of her feared what would happen once he got over his temporary lust for her and found someone else (or some other book) to focus his attractions on. But it was far too late to _stop _loving him now.

"I'm not sure what his feelings are," she said slowly. "I just know that he probably likes me too."

"How much?" Naruto asked quickly.

'_Enough to fuck me_,' was an answer that teetered on the tip of her tongue. The interrogation was beginning to annoy her. She wanted them to back off by giving them the truth, even though she knew they probably wouldn't be able to handle it anyway. Instead she tried to spare them by saying, "I don't know." Because informing them that their teacher wanted to screw her silly was probably one of the few things left in this world that could make these two boys' tempers erupt in atomic proportions. They'd be smothering the poor man with his pillow before she'd finished her sentence.

"Well," Naruto began reluctantly, giving Kakashi a contemptuous look. "At least it's better than that Suna bastard."

Sasuke shrugged. "I don't really care one way or another."

Which was essentially their way of giving consent.

A faint smile touched Sakura's lips. "Was he really worried about me?"

"That's what Pakkun said," Naruto said with disinterest. "Kakashi hardly ever gets worried about anything. When he does, you know it's serious. For him to head out without any preparation… I mean, it's not that we _weren't _worried, but we at least took the time to get Tsunade in case you were injured and Gaara because he's the only one who could get us through the sandstorm, and then Hinata because she's the only reason we found you underground with her byakugan and then everyone was sort of inviting themselves along because they were worried about you."

"Temari said it would be bad for village relations if they let someone from Konoha get kidnapped on their watch," Sasuke explained dully. "It would look bad if it appeared they hadn't given your recovery their full effort and attention too. That's why so many ANBU invited themselves along. Pure politics."

"I appreciate it anyway," Sakura said graciously. "But if Kakashi hadn't gotten there when he had… I might be dead."

Naruto was still giving Kakashi a grudging look. He bent down to speak into the unconscious man's ear. "You may have saved her life, but if you make her cry you'll live to regret it."

Sakura clicked her tongue in annoyance and rolled her eyes. "Would you stop it?" she snapped, smacking him on the back. "He's lapsed into a coma for me! What does it take to get your approval?"

"We'd be happier if he was richer," Naruto said seriously.

"Less perverted," Sasuke added.

"A little younger."

"Not so fragile."

"But not so smart either."

"And he should be easier to beat up."

"And maybe have dimples?"

Sakura looked quickly at the floor and bit her tongue to keep from confessing that he _did _actually have dimples.

"But other than that," Naruto said, "He's not so bad. You could do worse. _Much worse_."

"Why did you look at me when you said that?" Sasuke barked.

"Oh, _no reason_," Naruto snapped back, giving him another significant look.

Sakura held up her hands. "No fighting in the hospital! Save it for the roof, guys."

They both cast her a vaguely guilty looks before Naruto immediately plucked up. "Oh – hey – Sakura-chan! We've having a celebration tonight for the results of the exams. Do you want to come?"

"You passed?" Sakura blinked in surprise at Sasuke.

The Uchiha simply shrugged.

"We don't know yet," Naruto explained. "We get the results tonight, but either way we plan to celebrate or commiserate with alcohol."

"I'll definitely come," she said happily. "Hopefully Kakashi will have woken up by then."

But as the day wore on and Naruto and Sasuke left in search of more interesting things to do than watch a sleeping man, it seemed that the probability of Kakashi waking up before tomorrow was growing slimmer. Despite his previous attempt to make a break for freedom by falling out of bed, he was perfectly still and unreachable. Occasionally a nurse dropped by to take down some notes before disappearing again, but it seemed his condition wasn't changing all that much.

"You really did it this time, I think," she said wearily, rubbing her eyes as she looked over him. "I'm actually considering confiscating your eye just to keep you from doing something this stupid in the future."

Finally she grew bored enough to turn on the television again to see if anything decent had come on since the last time she'd checked. She settled on a rather suspicious looking soap opera. Naturally, at least two characters were in comas of their own, but after five minutes one of them had already sprung out of bed, fresh as a daisy; a daisy suffering from amnesia.

"Are you taking notes?" she said, poking Kakashi's side. "Why can't you wake up that fast? But if you've forgotten who the hell I am, I'll put you straight back in a coma, ok?"

Her eyes were beginning to get hot and dry as exhaustion crept up on her. She was still getting over her awful night of fever and vomiting, and worrying over Kakashi was probably wearing her even thinner, if not turning her prematurely gray. But she didn't realize quite how tired she was until she felt a hand on her shoulder and jolted upright in her seat. "I'm awake," she said quickly, if a little unconvincingly.

A kindly looking young nurse smiled down at her. "You've been here all day. Maybe you should go home and get some rest? Me and Aki will keep an eye on him."

Sakura peered across at the second nurse in the room and wondered why she hadn't heard either of them enter. "Ok…" She might as well catch some sleep before the party the boys were planning to have. Stiffly, she stood and smiled as she brushed her hand over Kakashi's limp one. "Get better soon," she ordered. "I'll be back tomorrow."

It was with heavily mixed feelings that Sakura made her way through the hospital. Half of her wanted to stay and make sure she was there the very moment he woke up so she wouldn't miss a thing. The other half of her knew perfectly well that it made no difference whether she sat with him or not, and that since her hotel bed was about twenty percent softer than her bed in Konoha, it would be a shame to waste a single opportunity to wallow on it.

Of course, the whole problem would be solved if Kakashi just _woke up_. But even as she cursed him for being so selfish as to lie around unconscious all day and suck up her time, she was worried too. Not just a little, but a lot. Because Sakura was a medic, and as a medic she knew that there was a chance Kakashi might _never_ wake up.

And that was just too painful to…

_Ooh – chocolate!_

A quick detour was in order the moment she spotted a well-stocked vending machine with some of her favorite sweets inside. Unfortunately, the few ryo coins in her pocket wouldn't actually fit the slot, no matter how hard she tried to force it through. Suna machines simply didn't take Konoha change, leaving Sakura to stare forlornly at her desired candy bar.

Well… there was nobody looking. Sakura took a quick scan of the empty corridor and discreetly reached up to the top of the machine to haul it diagonal to the wall. After a few brisk shakes, the chocolate and sweets began to rain down into the tray.

Heck, it was the least Suna could do for her after all the trauma she'd been put through in the last twenty-four hours. She was just putting the machine back in its place and crouching to scoop up her numerous prizes when she heard running.

"Haruno-san!"

Guiltily, she started and looked up. "What?" she asked. "I was just-"

"It's the White-Fang's son – you need to come quickly!"

"I – uh – what?" Sakura waved a candy bar at the anxious nurse. "I'm sorry, but I don't work here. I'm not allowed to practice medicine on-"

"No, miss." The nurse shook her head as she nervously beckoned to Sakura. "It's your friend – Hatake Kakashi? We need you."

Sakura dropped her chocolate with a clatter, instantly wide awake and terrified. "What's happened?" She didn't wait around for an answer as she immediately hurtled past the nurse and back up the stairs. Her heart was pounding harder than necessary, and she skidded around so many corners it was a wonder she didn't send anyone flying. Two possibilities were running through her head: either Kakashi had woken up, or he'd just taken a turn for the worse.

Sakura was a natural optimist, but at that moment she didn't have time to reassure herself…

She slammed through the doors to Kakashi's ward, out of breath and looking around wildly for the problem. There was the nurse, Aki, standing beside Kakashi's bed looking flustered and annoyed but Kakashi himself looked the same as ever. His readouts on the machines were all normal, as they had been when she'd left.

"What's wrong?" Sakura asked, coming forward to take a closer look. "The nurse said there was trouble."

"Yes," the flustered nurse said irritably. "It's _him_. _He's_ the trouble."

Here she gave Kakashi a venomous look, but all Sakura could see was a peacefully sleeping man who sort of resembled an angel. What possible trouble could a man in a coma cause?

But then… it _was_ Kakashi.

"A few moments after you left he started getting agitated," the nurse explained, pushing her brown locks back into place beneath her cap. "Tried to pull out his IV and get up. He's strong too, it's not like I could hold him either. Of course, the moment you come in he calms down like a lamb. Sneaky little…" The nurse composed herself. "Do you mind staying a bit longer while we sort out some restraints for him? He'll hurt himself if he insists on moving about so much."

"He gets agitated?" Sakura repeated.

"Mm." The nurse tucked a slightly disheveled blanket more tightly around Kakashi, as if attempting to pin him to the bed. "He knows where he is and he doesn't like it. If you could just stay a little while to make him behave…?"

"Of course," Sakura said unthinkingly, reaching out to take Kakashi's unresponsive hand. Unlike the nurse, Sakura's heart went out to him. It couldn't be much fun in that bed. "It's not his fault. He spends most of his life in hospital, you see. He's probably acquired an aversion."

"I'll just go get the restraints."

"No!" Sakura said quickly. "Don't bother, it's not worth it. I'll just stick around."

The nurse gave her a strange look. "Are you sure?"

"I don't think he wants to be alone, that's all," Sakura said softly.

"Eh," hummed the nurse, apparently uncaring. "As you wish." She wasn't going to protest too much if Sakura took some work off her shoulders.

The moment she left, Sakura whirled on Kakashi. "You're a nuisance!"

She imagined his comatose silence held a slightly sheepish edge.

"If you wanted company, you should have just told me so," she admonished with a softening resolve as she squeezed his hand tightly. "But I'm here now."

Kakashi seemed content to sleep on. His breathing remained deep and even and his face, or what she could see of it, was lax and tranquil. Giving into temptation, since they _were_ alone after all, she inched his mask down till it slid beneath his chin and beheld all of him.

Ah… she'd never get tired of that face.

Even when he was as vastly ill as he was now, he was beautiful. If those nurses had taken a moment to peek at his face, they wouldn't have been able to conjure a bad word against him. He was a little ashen, true, and his left eye was covered by a thick wad of bandages, but his features were just as strong and attractive as ever. His lips, pale, dry and perfect still looked deliciously tempting, and Sakura found herself staring them as she considered Naruto's earlier proposal.

"You're probably going to kill me for this, but…"

Sakura bent down and pressed her lips to his. It was her sixth kiss in total, and yet again it was different from all the others. This time it was doubtful if Kakashi was even aware of it, and the feel of his pliant, indifferent mouth beneath hers felt odd. Still… it was comforting to know he wouldn't and couldn't pull away and crush her feelings.

In a perfect world, this would be the part where he stirred and began kissing her back and asking where he was and if she was an angel. But apparently that really did only ever happen in movies or in soap operas like the one she'd watched earlier. In reality, Kakashi slept on and the kiss felt empty.

Pulling back a little, Sakura pouted at him. "I've no idea if you felt that. But I'm very grateful for what you did for me back there. So maybe if you wake up I can thank you more properly…? Oh – no! Not like that – I just meant with, like, a kiss or something! Nothing… nothing rude or anything. I-I'm just going to shut up now and pray you didn't hear that…"

She hastily pulled his mask back up and sank into the soft chair at his bedside with a low sigh, tired and frustrated and frayed around the edges. Laying her head against Kakashi's mattress, she reached for his hand, more to comfort herself than for him. It was much larger and stronger in comparison to her own. The tips of his fingers were blunt and square where hers were slim and tapered, and hard, dry calluses lined his palm from years of handling weapons while hers were still relatively soft and smooth.

Sakura didn't like her hands. She wished they were more like Ino's – delicate and slim and unmistakably female. Instead they were practical and strong with weak nails that broke right down to the bed should she dared to do anything remotely active with them. But next to Kakashi's, her hand looked good. It looked like it belonged.

A yawn tore from her mouth before she could stop it and she blinked sleepy moisture out of her eyes. "I'm not going to sleep," she told Kakashi. "I'm just… resting my eyes for a moment" She broke off with another yawn and shut her eyes.

Within seconds she was as deeply asleep as he was.

* * *

Matsura may have been sucked off the face of the planet quite literally, but in her dreams he was still an ever-present entity. Always there; his shadow lingering even when he wasn't physically present. Her dream must have shifted at least five times, but she could still feel him at the edges of her peripheral vision. But at least he wasn't the only one in her dreams. Wherever Matsura's presence was felt, Kakashi was there too, acting like a barrier between her and that monster, because no one could touch her when Kakashi was with her.

And then he was gone.

Sakura jolted awake to a dark room, her throat sore from snoring and an embarrassing puddle of drool on her arm where her head had been resting. Before she'd even fully woken up, her hand was reaching out, searching for Kakashi's, but all she found was a cold, empty bed missing its blanket.

That blanket, it seemed, had been draped over her shoulders at some point.

Shrugging it off, Sakura stood and looked around the room in disbelief. The IV needle was lying on the bed, still attached to the drip, along with the sticky bandage that had pinned it to Kakashi's hand. The cupboard that had been storing his clothes was open and empty.

"I don't believe it…" she whispered. The bastard had just got up and _left_.

It took Sakura all of twenty seconds to storm out of the corner and collar the nearest nurse. "Where's he gone?" she demanded.

"W-Who?" The nurse stammered.

"Hatake Kakashi! He's gone!"

"I'm not sure what… who?"

Sakura released the unhelpful nurse and stormed off in search of someone who would know what had happened. She spotted such a person in the form of Tsunade, heading toward her down the corridor. Before Sakura could open her mouth and demand an explanation, Tsunade cut her off. "Ah – Sakura! I am utterly lost. You don't know where the cafeteria is do you?"

"No, shishou," Sakura said quickly. "Do you know where Kakashi-sensei is?"

"Kakashi?" A despairing look passed over the hokage's face. "Apparently he discharged himself about an hour ago while I was busy trying to find the restroom. These Suna medics are useless. They just let him walk out."

"So he's awake?" Sakura breathed.

"I presume so," Tsunade nodded. "I'd go find him and wring his neck myself if I wasn't so tied down. Do me a favor? Next time you see him, _kick him _for me. And then make sure he's alright. It was a relatively low-level coma, but he was still seriously ill. Impress that upon him."

Sakura nodded numbly.

"Now go home and have a shower. You need it."

"Yes, shishou," Sakura said thickly.

There was a certain degree of injustice and anger swelling inside her as Sakura plodded her way back to the hotel. Partly because one teacher had just implied she was looking and/or smelling a little rough, and partly because her _other_ teacher had simply walked off without a single word of thanks. She'd spent the whole day at his bedside worrying and fretting over the worst-case scenario, sitting there with him when she could have been back in her hotel gorging on room service. The least he could have done upon waking was let her know that he was alright. But no… he'd just gotten dressed and discharged himself.

The anger only intensified as she reached the hotel, and as she made her way up to her room it became clearer that every door she passed through was being slammed progressively harder in her wake. By the time she stomped into her small bathroom, it was a wonder she hadn't ripped any doors off their hinges. She positively _tore _ her clothes off and threw them in a mangled pile on the floor and stepped under the spray of the shower without testing the water – and then leapt straight back out with a squeak as she was hit by scalding heat. It only served to drive her temper even further toward the edge.

"Bastard…" she muttered bitterly, if not a little brokenly as she scrubbed at her skin with a new kind of savagery. Knots of blood and sand caught in her hair, making her hiss in pain every time her stitches were pulled. Irritatingly her eyes stung, and she couldn't be sure all the moisture on her face was from the showerhead.

Through the hiss of water and steam there came a faint banging. Curiously, Sakura turned off the water and listened.

Someone was at her door.

"Oh, _brilliant_…" she sighed, hastily tumbling back into her room, simultaneously trying to dry herself off with a towel, find some clothes, and call out, "Hang on!"

She pulled on her black skirt and red vest only, unable to immediately locate any underwear that wasn't packed away at the bottom of her suitcase under the bed. But it would be enough to answer the door and tell whoever was on the other side to _go to hell_.

With a towel still draped over her hair, she finally opened the door.

"Oh…" she said, staring dumbly. "Takkun?"

"Sakura-chan," he began brightly, and it was then that she noticed the rose in his hand. "I've been worried about you! I heard you were kidnapped."

"It happens," she said awkwardly.

"Are you ok?" he asked.

"I'm fine." She kept her responses short and cagey, hoping he'd get the idea that she'd gone off him. Apparently nearly being stabbed by a chop stick for getting too fresh hadn't made much of an impression.

But Takkun wasn't the sharpest kunai in the holster. When he suddenly got down on one knee, Sakura nearly reeled back in alarm. "What are you doing?" she asked incredulously.

"Sakura-chan, I'd be very much obliged if you stayed in Suna and became my girlfriend," he said, holding out the rose. "What do you say?"

Sakura could only stare in bewilderment. "_What?"_

"We can get engaged if you like?"

"But… I can't," she said, gesturing back at her room. "I'm in the middle of my shower."

"Sakura-chan, I think I love you. I've never felt this much for any other girl but you! Please say you'll stay?"

"Um…" Suitably disturbed, Sakura looked behind her. "You don't really know me, Takkun."

He didn't seem to care. "I don't care. I feel like my soul has recognized yours and I've never been so sure of anything in my whole life."

Sakura sighed. "Goodnight, Takkun." _You're an idiot_.

She promptly shut the door in his face and went back to towel-drying her hair. Takkun continued to knock at the door. "Just give me a chance!" she heard him call.

"No, thanks!" she called back. "Please go away!"

"Sakura-chan, I just want to talk."

She decided to ignore him, hoping that her lack of response would eventually drive the point home to him that she _wasn't_ interested. However, the longer she ignored him, the long he knocked. It quickly became clear that Takkun had a skull thick enough to rival Naruto's.

After another loud series of knocks she finally threw her towel down in annoyance and went to the window. He was still knocking as she hauled it open and slipped out onto the fire escape outside. Sakura simply shook her head and padded over to the next window to see if Naruto or Sasuke were there to offer her shelter and perhaps chase off her persistent Romeo – something they were awfully accomplished at. But their rooms were dark and it seemed they were already out celebrating (or commiserating).

Nevertheless, Ino's room was two floors down, which was plenty far enough away from Takkun.

The metal grating felt chilly against her feet as she descended the rickety set of stairs to the level beneath, but the set of stairs leading to Ino's floor was on the other side of the building, meaning she'd have to pass every window on _this _level to get to it. At least it was dark, so the chances of being spotted were slim.

Most of the rooms were dark and empty. As she carefully sneaked her way past the first lit up window, she spotted a girl inside who looked like she'd just had a shower of her own and was now painting her nails.

She was halfway to the other side when she passed a window that made her come to a complete halt.

It was Kakashi's room.

At least, she _assumed_ it was Kakashi's room, since there appeared to be an bright orange volume of Icha Icha lying on the bed. She recalled the morning he'd traveled in the elevator with her – he'd entered from this floor, so it was likely that this really was his room, even though she couldn't see the man in question.

But wasn't this prying? Perhaps it was best to just move along and find Ino's room? What if he was in the shower himself? What if he was about to emerge in nothing but his towel? What if he emerged in _nothing_?

That settled it. Sakura was staying.

She didn't have to wait long to see movement. Kakashi _did_ emerge from the bathroom, but much to her disappointment (relief, she told herself) he was fully dressed in his uniform, sans his green vest and black jacket, with his mask down and a toothbrush in his mouth. Instinctively, Sakura froze, knowing the cover of darkness would hide her from sight and he would only see her if she made any sudden movements.

Anxiously she watched him for any sign of ailment. He seemed to be moving slower than usual, as stooped to pick something out of his pack behind his bed, but without getting close enough to examine him properly, it was hard to tell if there was anything seriously wrong with him. He disappeared into the bathroom for another minute or so, and when he emerged his mask was back in place. He slumped into a sitting position on the edge of his bed, facing away from her with his chin poised on a fist.

He looked the quintessential image of a 'thinking' man.

Gathering her nerve, Sakura tapped on the window. She watched as Kakashi's heard turned slowly and he regarded her over his right shoulder with his lone dark eye. It seemed darker than usual, and he appeared to have a smudge of black beneath it, signifying a weariness she could only guess at.

Stiffly he got to his feet and moved toward the window. He stopped a foot away, shoved his hands into his pockets and gave her a faint nod. "Can I help you?" he asked, his voice muffled by the glass.

A more considerate person would have opened the window and invited her in. "Can I come inside?" she asked, wrapping her arms around herself to let him know it wasn't all that warm.

"Mmmm…" He dragged out the sound, as if uncertain. "No. Why?"

"It's cold and I want to talk to you." Actually, she wanted to shout at him and maybe slap him, but he would never let her inside if he knew that. But perhaps he was already wise to her tactics and that was why he was playing hard to get.

"You should try the door," he said, nodding to it. "Marvelous inventions."

She shifted uncomfortably on the fire escape as a gust of wind blew her wet hair around her face. "Why are you being funny with me? You do remember me don't you? I'm _Sakura_. I was your student-"

"I know who you are, Sakura," he said, his flat tone penetrating the window pane as easily as his incredulous gaze.

If he'd had amnesia she might have been able to forgive him. If not… "Let me in Kakashi. I'm going to catch a cold."

"Don't you have a room of your own?" he pointed out.

"Yes, but there's a rather irritating boy banging on my door who refuses to go away."

"Ah. The brunette turned out to be a mistake, did he?"

She bit her cheek to keep from retorting that she could have figured that out for herself _without_ his meddling. "Let me in, or I smash the window."

He stared at her, as if assessing whether or not she would make good on her threat. Apparently he wasn't willing to take chances, and reached out to pull the window open. Sakura pulled herself inside and immediately reveled in how much warmer it was than the fire escape. But no sooner had she landed on her feet than Kakashi caught her elbow and began steering her toward the door. "I'm sure you can hide from the brunette in Ino's room, so-"

She jerked her arm out of his reach. "Forget it," she snapped. "I came here to ask you something."

Kakashi peered at her reluctantly. "Which is?"

"What the _hell_ do you think you're doing walking out of hospital like that?!" she barked, watching him lean back slightly. "You were seriously ill! You don't just get up and walk off like that without getting checked out by a doctor! What if there was lasting damage? What if there were complications? You should be in a hospital bed still!"

"Why?" He pointed at the hotel bed. "This one's comfier."

"And the least you could have done was _wake_ me," she snarled. "I was so worried about you. I swear – half my hair came out in the shower because of you! But you just left me there in hospital like you didn't care."

Kakashi looked away from her.

Sakura's eyes narrowed. "Or didn't you care?"

"I left because I felt ok. There was no reason to stick around," he explained, still not looking at her. "I was tired and I wanted to sleep somewhere that didn't smell like bleach. Now is that all you wanted to know? Because if it is, you can go on your merry way now."

She almost felt inclined to slam her way out of his room in spite, but she couldn't choose spite over her duty. "I can't," she said bluntly. "Tsunade-shishou ordered me to check you over."

"Did she now?" The way he said made it sound more like a statement than a query.

"She also told me to kick you," Sakura said. "So which would you prefer?"

He sighed. "A check over will be fine."

Sakura jabbed a finger at his bed. "Sit."

Kakashi moved past her unhurriedly and took the seat she indicated. As she stepped forward to stand between his knees and run the tips of her fingers in a non-nonsense fashion up the sides of his masked throat, he looked as if he was wishing he'd picked the 'kicking' option. Sakura ignored his unenthusiastic expression and went about checking his pulse. It was a little faster than usual, but hardly anything to worry about, and certainly not unexpected in his condition.

"Take off your mask and say 'ah'," she ordered.

"Is it necessary?" he asked.

"If I say it is, yes."

Another sigh and a slow tug of his hand brought his mask down around his throat. When he opened his mouth in a small pathetic 'ah', she gave his bandaged eye a hard poke that made his mouth drop open in a louder, wider, "Argh!"

"Seems ok," she said dismissively, pressing her fingers against the bare skin of his freshly exposed neck. "Do you feel hot at all?"

His eye remained firmly fixed on something off to the side. "A little," he said stiffly. "Your hands are cold."

"Suck it up," she breezed. "Any hallucinations? Bright lights? Black spots?"

"No."

"Do you remember everything? Your name, your country, your village, and so on?"

"Yes."

"Who's our Hokage?"

"The Sandaime – don't look at me like that, it was a _joke_. I am _fine_."

Sakura's teeth ground together. "Does this hurt?" she asked, pressing along the back of his neck.

"No."

She pressed against the back of his head. "Here?"

"No."

"Any headaches?"

"No."

"Does this hurt?" she pressed against his scarred cheek and noticed a flinch.

"No," he replied stubbornly.

"What about this?" She poked his eye again.

"Ow – yes, stop that." He batted her hand away.

"Can I have a look at your sharingan?" she asked.

"You're the medic," he answered with a shrug.

Sakura nodded and began peeling the bandage away. Beneath it, a small patch of gauze covered his eye and as Sakura plucked it away she noticed there were a few specs of blood on it. Looking at the eye itself she noticed it looked a little raw, but otherwise ok, as if he'd simply been rubbing it too hard. The sharingan blinked at her shoulder, squinting in the light.

"How's your vision?" she asked, genuinely concerned.

Kakashi closed one eye and then the other, as if comparing the two eyes. "It's definitely weaker. I may have to wear a monocle after all."

Sakura's eyebrows shot up. "Excuse me?"

He shook his head. "Just this dream I had…"

Sakura would have laughed and told him the truth behind that dream if she hadn't been so annoyed with him. Instead she grunted and pressed the clean side of the gauze back over his eye. "We'll keep this on a bit longer so it won't fall out," she told him as she wrapped the bandage back around his head.

"That's comforting," he murmured.

Sakura shrugged. "You'll live either way."

"I hate to say 'I told you so', but-"

"You _love_ to say 'I told you so'."

"-I did tell you so."

Sakura tucked the bandage back into place and planted her hands on her hips to regard him stonily. He was still refusing to meet her eyes. She knew that for Kakashi this was not a sign of shyness or timidity. It was introversion and delicate hinting that he didn't want her around.

Which was somewhat at odds with his subconscious behavior earlier.

He was trying to ignore her, even as she stood directly before him with her knees slightly bumping his. His gaze was fixed resolutely on the window, and she knew that he wouldn't speak or look at her unless he had to, or unless it was inviting her to _leave_.

Two could play the game. She could go along with it, pretend he didn't exist and that she didn't love him, and that there was no attraction between them whatsoever. But she didn't want that. For a brief moment in that cold tunnel when he'd held her in his arms with no hesitation or compunction, it had been the most wonderful moment in her life. Even if it had only been for a second, it had been unhindered, reciprocated affection. Something she'd never had before. Now that she'd tasted it… it was difficult to go back to pretending.

"You're a very silly man," she said, in a low, hollow voice that seemed to make the silence of his room turn a shade quieter. Sakura felt like she was speaking forbidden words, but she was tired of pretending now. Kakashi said nothing. He made no visible reaction, but that just proved that they both knew what she meant. "I thought after the way you saved me we would be friends again. Now you're back to avoiding me, even when I'm standing right in front of you. You can't even _look _at me."

Kakashi's only response was to inhale deeply and let it out in a sigh as his fingers rubbed idly across his lips as if in deep thought. His gaze still remained locked on the window.

"Are you that ashamed of me?"

"Now who's being silly?" he said distantly.

"_Are _you ashamed?" she whispered. "You said you wanted me when you… and you… with your… um… but obviously there's something about me that you find repulsive."

Kakashi stood up suddenly, forcing her to step back. "I bet your brunette has gotten bored and wandered back to his burrow now. Perhaps you should go check?" He started towards the door, but Sakura caught the back of his vest in her fist.

"Kakashi," she said quickly, before her courage ran out on her again as it did far too frequently when she faced this man. "Whatever it is you want from me… I want it too."

He turned, breaking her grip and fixed his gaze directly on hers. "How can you possibly want what I want when you don't even know what it is that _I _want?" he demanded, though he sounded more exasperated than angry.

Sakura blinked rapidly, trying hard to dissect and make sense of his words.

He shook his head and looked tired again. "Sakura, you are seventeen years old. You have no idea what you want."

He might as well have just come right out and said "You're too young and stupid to love." And while sometimes she could freely admit that she was young and stupid, she had never been uncertain about what she wanted or who she loved. Kakashi had no right to presume otherwise.

"So it really is just about my age? And my inexperience?" she ground out, hands furling into trembling fists at her sides. "You don't want me because I'm not old and jaded like you? Because I'm still a virgin?"

His silence was all the affirmation she needed.

"Well, what's it going to take?" she demanded. "Would you accept me if I went off and had a few meaningless flings and lost this 'innocent, naïve virgin' image you have of me? But clearly that isn't what you want, otherwise why the hell did you pay Naruto and Sasuke to mess up my date with Takkun?"

"So you figured it out?" There wasn't an ounce of guilt written anywhere on that face.

"You don't have to figure too hard when Naruto's involved," she told him pointedly. "But do you get what I'm saying? If this is all just about my virginity, you're going to have to accept that if you won't take it, it'll just have to be someone else."

The expression he had then wasn't quite the 'I've just been stabbed in the gut' look, but it was something similar. It was more of a 'Holy shit, my student just offered me her virginity' flinch. But he recovered quickly. "You're oversimplifying things," he said bluntly.

"I wouldn't have to if you'd just come out and tell me what the problem is!" she exploded.

"You know what the problem is."

"Oh, yes, I think I do!" she snapped. "Perhaps what this really boils down to, is that you don't trust me! You think I'm just some stupid teenage girl who moons over the flavor of the week like Ino! You don't believe I'm capable of love! You don't even believe me when I say I love you! Even though, never once in my life have I ever claimed to love someone without truly meaning it!"

He looked at her closely. "Are those drugs gone from your system yet? You seem to be acting a little… irrational. Perhaps you're not quite in your right mind?"

"Damn you!" Sakura gave him a hard shove. "I suppose I must be _out_ of my mind to like _you_!" she seethed, reaching down to grab Icha Icha off the bed and hurl it at his chest. "You and your perverted books and your dimples and your stupid, _stupid_ inability to say what you mean! Stop looking at the floor! You see – you don't even have the guts to face me! You're afraid of your own student! Although maybe that's what you like about it? Would you be interested if I was older, or someone else's student? You keep acting like you're afraid to violate this gap between us… but I think in reality, it's exactly what turns you on. You really are just a pervert."

It was too far. She knew it was. The moment the words were said, she knew she'd overstepped the vague, indistinct line between them that was getting vaguer and harder to see every day, but at this point she was getting desperate to get any kind of rise out of him. She didn't quite expect the sudden lash of anger though. There was a rage in his eyes that she'd sometimes seen him grace on enemies, and had always been glad that she'd never been on the receiving end. Now she stumbled back as he strode toward her, the back of her knees hitting the edge of the bed. Kakashi caught her by the arms before she could fall.

"_Don't_ you _dare_ say things like that," he said, in one of the most angry and dangerous tones she'd ever heard him use. He didn't need to raise his voice at all to get his venom across. "You have no idea what you've put me through."

"If I don't, it's because you won't tell me," she said, feeling infinitely smaller than she had a few moments ago as her anger and resolve fled in the face of his. But in some way she liked it. She liked his power and how controlled he was, even when he was as angry as this. She liked the way his gaze wandered over her face and settled on her lips, and the way his fingers tightened against her arms when she licked them automatically. She could feel the tension rolling off of him like in the elevator, only this time he seemed so much closer to the breaking point. More than ever she wanted to see him lose that tenacious hold he seemed to have on his control. Heck, at this point a small breeze might make him lose it.

Abruptly, Kakashi released her arms and stepped back, leaving Sakura to overbalance and fall back onto the bed with a squeak. All too aware of her lack of underwear, she quickly clamped her legs together and pressed her skirt down that was threatening to ride up. Kakashi's sharp eye saw her immediate awkwardness and frowned, confused. "What?" he demanded sharply.

Sakura didn't know quite what to say. And when Sakura didn't know quite what to say, she usually resorted to telling the truth. "I-I'm not wearing any panties…"

* * *

TBC

* * *


	17. In which a breaking point is reached

A/N: Filthy, filthy chapter for you now. :p Don't say I didn't warn you, so if serious canoodling bothers you, turn back now while you still can. It's not too late to save your innocence from corruption!

* * *

_ The anger swells in my guts,_

_And I won't feel these slices and cuts, __  
_

_ I want so much to open your eyes, _

_'Cos I need you to look into mine_

* * *

There were many times throughout her life when Sakura had put her foot in things. Times when she'd made a bad situation a whole lot worse by simply breathing the wrong way. However, she couldn't quite figure out if this was one of those times. 

Certainly, her timid admission had swept the scowl straight off Kakashi's face. That could only be a good thing, right? But now he was staring at her as if she'd just announced her fondness for kittens on toast and her had throat closed up one sentence too late. Sakura would have preferred ranting and raging to the cold, confused silence he was treating her to now. She chewed her lip and stared at the floor, fidgeting with the hem of her skirt while she waited for his reaction.

After nearly a full minute, Kakashi found his voice. "I'm sorry," he started off, having to clear his throat of the rough edge it had suddenly acquired. "Did you just say you're not wearing any panties?"

If there was any possibility that Kakashi might have misheard her, she would have leapt upon it. But she knew perfectly well that he'd heard her and he wouldn't believe her if she tried to laugh it off now – mostly because she was an appalling liar. "That's right," she said quietly.

The man visibly swayed. "Why?" A single soft syllable of utter confusion.

"I-I just didn't have time to put them on," she said, flushing a bright red.

"No… why do you do these things to me?" It seemed to be a rhetorical question as his hand came up to pinch the bridge of his nose like a headache was on the way. "Sometimes I'm sure you're doing it deliberately, and then you look at me like that and you make me feel like a depraved old man."

"Look at you like what?" she asked, peering at him hesitantly.

"Like you're Konoha's number one most sheltered virgin."

She recoiled angrily. "I can't help looking like that – that's just my face!" she said hotly. "Just the way I'm sure you can't help looking like Konoha's number one most slothful sofa-spud."

Kakashi shook his head slightly. "You need to go… go some place far away where there's lots of panties for you to wear," he said wearily, moving backwards till he met his paper-laden desk. "Now."

Sakura didn't move. "We haven't finished talking yet," she reproved.

"Did you really come here to talk, Sakura?" he bit out.

"Of course!" she snapped, thoroughly confused. "What else would I come here for – oh – you-" Her blush grew even hotter. "Well – of course you'd think that! Just because I'm not wearing panties! You're nothing but a pervert!"

Having decided she'd probably filled her weekly embarrassment quota (heck, her monthly one had been aptly topped up now), Sakura flew to her feet, intent on storming out the door in a somewhat impressive display of temper. But as she passed Kakashi she found her elbow snagged, and in a maneuver that could only be executed by a veteran ninja, he pulled her flush against the desk and trapped her there with his body. Sakura froze. She suddenly discovered herself eyelevel with the bunched up mask around Kakashi's neck, but she couldn't seem to inch her gaze any higher. Gentle fingers brushed her outer thighs, smoothing against her skin and teasing the hem of her skirt. A soft quake worked its way up her spine and down her arms. In her panty-less state, Sakura was beginning to feel increasingly vulnerable.

"Why so shy all of a sudden?" he asked in a low voice. His lips brushed her forehead as he spoke. "Isn't this what you want?"

Her breathing had turned shallow as he invaded virtually every one of her senses. She could feel him, smell him, hear his breathing while his larger frame filled her vision. Sakura's eyes slid shut, concentrating on the near intoxicating effect of his proximity. The urge to lean into him right then was overwhelming.

She felt him sigh into her damp hair. "You always smell good. I have no idea why."

"I just had a shower," she whispered softly. Reality had wandered into the realms of the surreal, and her head was beginning to feel light and faraway. Every brush of his fingers against her thighs coaxed her sensibilities a little further towards the edge.

"Even when you've not washed for days you still smell divine," he murmured against her forehead. "Sometimes when you walk by me, it's all I can do to stop myself from… how can your skin be so soft?" The subtle brush of his fingers turned to blatant squeezing.

Heart hammering, Sakura swallowed hard. "I… exfoliate?" She didn't really care what he was saying as long as he kept talking in that low, smooth tone and continued caressing her thighs with his strong hands.

"But…" he said, easing his hands away from her, much to her infuriation. "I'm not going to do something that you're going to regret later and hate me for. It's not right."

Sakura glared at him through the dim light. He was pulling away, stepping back… regaining some of that control that had momentarily slipped away from him. "I'll hate you more if you keep on ignoring me. I won't forgive you for being a coward, and it's way too late to try and pretend everything's ok between us – it's clearly not. I think this is what people call 'past the point of no return'."

"There's still time to preserve honor and propriety," he said huskily.

"Coward." She virtually spat the word at him.

He returned her stare evenly, and she noticed some of the previous anger she'd witnessed was still present. It was the kind of glare that could give Sasuke a run for his money.

"I don't care what's right or proper or honorable, you _toad_," she ground out. "If it means you start treating me like an adult and stop giving me these cold shoulders all the time, then you can kindly _screw_ honor and do the wrong and improper thing! Right now! I mean it!"

She had the feeling that this was probably what it felt like to stare down a bull without a red rag. Deliberately taunting and provoking a man as seriously close to the edge as Kakashi was a dangerous endeavor, and she wasn't entirely sure what would happen. She didn't even know what she _wanted_ to happen. But when his brow pulled down and his shoulders tensed, she knew she was having some affect. And this pleased her far more than it should have.

"Come on…" she muttered angrily, reaching behind her to grab a handful of reports off the desk to throw at him. He deflected the scattered papers with an arm, creating a satisfying cascade of white. "Stop being so _good!_"

He reached her in two steps before the last of the paper had hit the floor. His mouth was on hers faster than she could react; violence, possession and desperation all rolling into one hard, clumsy kiss. Sakura reeled in shock, hands touching hesitantly against his shoulders. There was a near animalistic kind of urgency about the way he touched her, his hands roaming ceaselessly over her back, through her hair and squeezing the backs of her thighs. Sakura had neither the experience nor the presence of mind to keep up. All she could do was follow his lead and take her cues.

"Why do you let me…?" he murmured, but it was lost and forgotten in the next moment as he pressed another demanding kiss upon her mouth.

Sakura was losing count of her kisses at this point. Each one now ran into the next; all of them bold and hot and insistent. It was unlike any other kind of kiss she'd received. The only one similar had been her first kiss in Matsura's gallery, but that one had held an all important restraint. The kisses Kakashi was giving her now were wild and forceful, full of little nips and gasps and an almost bruising pressure. He held her head steady as he plunged his tongue into her mouth and coaxed hers into a rough battle she had no hope of winning. The overwhelming taste of him made her moan and slump into him like she was boneless.

It was hardly one of those perfect, passionate kisses that you got in films. There was no time to slow down and inject some tenderness into the act. But Sakura didn't care. The urgency to have him close and take everything he was finally offering was too strong – too immediate.

Every stroke of his hands was doing something incredible to her insides. She clutched haplessly at his black vest and moaned into his kiss as the pleasant tingling between her legs began flaring to life with the powerful and sure manipulation of his hands. But when one of those hands swept beneath her skirt to rest against her hip, she began to tense. His thumb was drawing bold circles across the top of her thigh, drawing dangerously close to an unprotected thatch of pink curls. Sakura couldn't help the rush of panic that threatened to overwhelm the tide of desire when she remembered what had happened the last time someone had groped her down there.

But this was _Kakashi_. He wouldn't hurt her. Even with the wild and relentless way he was kissing her, he wouldn't ever dream of handling her the way Matsura had. He didn't have it within him to be cruel like that. But it only took the light scrape of his thumb over the slick bud of her sex and Sakura flinched hard, and not at all in a pleasant way. Kakashi froze over her, immediately sensing something was amiss. His breathing came hard across her moist, puffy lips as he held his hands utterly still against her.

"Ask me to stop," he whispered, in what could almost have been soft begging, "Ask me stop, I'll stop… we need to stop."

Another surge of loathing filled her for Matsura. He may have been dead, but he was still causing problems for her. It wasn't fair that everything she discovered with Kakashi now would be tainted by that man's influence. But there was no way Sakura was going to let him get the best of her.

Hesitantly, Sakura took Kakashi's hand by the wrist and guided it up for inspection. She didn't dare watch his face for his reaction when she singled out his thumb, already dampened by her own moisture, and closed her lips over it.

It was an odd taste, she decided about her own flavor. Sort of bland, sort of boring and neither good nor bad – a bit like her own cooking. She looked up to see Kakashi watching her with a mesmerized intensity, and very quickly he'd taken over, splaying his fingers across her cheek as he thrust his thumb further into her mouth. Obligingly she curled her tongue around the invading digit and stroked it experimentally, keeping mindful of Kakashi's reactions to tell if she was doing it right. And judging by his slightly glazed expression, so far so good.

She was reminded starkly of the time beneath the willow tree when their playful tussle over a mushroom had boiled over into something infinitely darker and more sexual. The memory must have hit Kakashi too, because after a moment he pulled his wet digit from her mouth with a soft pop and trailing it down over her chin and throat, right up to the zipper on her vest.

Sakura swallowed hard and watched his face carefully as he hesitated. Last time he hadn't quite had the guts to go beyond this point. He'd tugged the zip down a few inches and then had thoroughly freaked out, much to her disappointment (although, back then she'd decided it was called 'confusion').

Kakashi's indefinably dark eye met her gaze for a split second before he finally made his decision.

In one fell sweep, the vest split in two and Sakura felt large, warm hands cupping her back in order to bring her forward. All the better for Kakashi to attack her newly bared breasts with his mouth.

Sakura's head dropped back with a soft moan. She'd never thought her breasts were particularly sensitive, but that was before Kakashi. Sometimes he only had to look at her a certain way and she would feel them tighten sweetly as if in anticipation of his touch. Now that he was actually bending over her, rolling one nipple around in his mouth while tugging the other gently with a hand, the sensation was incredible. But she couldn't help but feel a niggle of worry…

Weren't they too small? Had he ever been with women with bigger breasts? Was he comparing her to those women right now? Was he mentally sighing in disappointment and consoling himself that hopefully this was her _only_ defect?

A low groan that sounded oddly like "Perky…" reassured her somewhat. But at that point all thoughts and insecurities about her breasts flew out the window when she felt herself hoisted against the edge of the desk and a hard body slipped between her legs.

A _hard_, hard body.

Kakashi suddenly straightened, raking his hands down her body from her breasts to clasp her hips and pull them tightly against his own. Hard fingers dug into her flesh as a slow roll of his hips ground the rather prominent erection concealed in his pants against the soft notch between her legs. Instantly Sakura bucked and cried out. The blatant, raw sexuality of the motion had her whole body throbbing with need and instinct began to take over, making her rock her hips against him in an attempt to appease the aching emptiness she felt. It was all too much. She'd never felt anything like this before. The combination of the powerful friction, his grip on her hips and the simple knowledge that this was _him_ making her feel this was more arousing than anything she'd ever experienced. All too quickly she felt herself sliding down the slippery slope toward orgasm.

Abruptly, Kakashi stopped moving against her. His face was a picture of intense concentration and focus, his fingers flexing against her like indecision. After a moment he gave a stifled groan. "I'm sorry."

Sakura was having too much trouble recovering from her near-miss with orgasm to really pay attention. "What?" she sighed distantly. Her senses quickly gained some clarity when she felt him shove her skirt up to her waist. Not entirely comfortable with the prospect of being completely exposed to his gaze, she squirmed. "What are you…?"

"I have to have you," he said through clenched teeth. He moved a hand between them, his knuckles brushing against overly sensitive flesh in his attempts to unfasten his own pants. Sakura watched, bemused.

Here? Now? Like this? Sakura began to scoot further back on the desk, her hands slipping on wads of incomplete reports as she tried to make futile gestures toward the bed. "Wait…"

"I can't." His voice was rough and shaken. He pulled her forward and she had the barest glimpse of his naked arousal – enough to make her panic at his sheer size – before she felt its broad tip press against her entrance.

Sakura stiffened with a pained gasp and grabbed for his shoulder. The feverish desire she'd felt moments ago fled with the arrival of the enormous pressure between her legs, pushing unrelentingly into her.

It hurt. It hurt far more than she'd expected. She was wet and aroused, but that hadn't seemed to help at all. She'd been warned of the initial pain of the 'first time', but she'd assumed that Matsura had dealt with that unpleasant aspect in his most unpleasant way. She'd wanted to be able to enjoy this, to be able to moan in pleasure for him and let him know that this was right. But now all she wanted to do was cry and scream and buck him off to be rid of this horrible hot, full and stretched sensation. She couldn't stop herself from writhing as little sounds of distress and pain tore from between her lips. Her arms thrashed about her, knocking more papers off the desk in a bid to find something to hold on to. One hand hit the lamp behind her, knocking it to the floor with a crash and their corner of the room was plunged into darkness. Neither of them cared to notice.

"Kakashi!" she choked out, as each push of his hips drove him deeper inside her, intensifying the discomfort she couldn't escape from. She caught hold of his shoulders and dug her fingers into him to distract herself from the pain. But it didn't seem easy for him either. His whole body was taut and strained and a small grunt of effort escaped him at the difficulty of penetration. Through the mad haze of pain she could see he was fighting vainly for control.

"Sakura, you have to relax," she heard him rasp. "It'll only keep hurting if you don't relax."

A raw, dry sob broke from her throat. "No," she said, trying to lift her knees to his front in order to push him away. "You're too big to-" She broke off with a sharp cry as her own action made him slide deeper into her, filling her completely to the hilt. She felt winded, impaled, unable to finish a thought let alone a sentence.

"Flattering," she heard him grunt above her. "But that just shows you haven't been around much. Now _relax_. You have to trust me, Sakura."

She winced, trying to keep as still as possible while her inner muscles fluttered in discomfort around his intruding length. "I do," she replied in a small voice. It was a bit of a lie actually. She _wanted_ to trust that it would feel good in a moment, but no matter how hard she tried to relax her tensed body, the pain remained, and she knew she was stretched beyond the point of pleasure. A few seconds ago she'd been on the verge of orgasm. Now she'd never been further from it.

"You can handle this," she heard him say roughly, his hands stroking up and down her sides in a comforting manner. "You're a tough girl."

"I am," she agreed weakly. Instinctively she arched against him, trying coax herself into accepting and adjusting to his girth. A shudder ran up her spine that was neither pleasure nor pain, but she knew Kakashi felt it too because he suddenly went tense against her. His control splintered once and for all and fell away completely, leaving him to grunt an apologetic sound before his hips suddenly surged against her and he began a fast, hard rhythm.

Sakura clenched her eyes shut and fisted her hands in his vest, trying to endure. It was difficult. She kept waiting for the pleasure to return, but it was completely out of reach by then. All she could feel was the constant discomfort of Kakashi's length driving in and out of her with incredible force, tossing her around helplessly at the violent upheaval of lust. Her senses retreated from the pain and narrowed until she was only able to concentrate on the pounding of her own heart that seemed to beat in time to the pounding of his body on hers.

She hoped he would finish soon just so it would be _over_.

It was all going horribly, horribly wrong. Her first time was meant to be romantic and tender, not crude and animalistic. She had allowed room for pain, but it was only meant to be brief – and only painful enough to bring a few tears to her eyes for him to kiss away lovingly. Then everything would be hot and passionate, and they would orgasm at the same time and then fall into a sated stupor where they could talk about feelings and cuddle – just like the couples in her mothers books always did. And it was all supposed to take place somewhere soft and romantic – like a bed. _Not_ on cluttered desks with rickety legs that banged against the wall with each thrust while pens and other unidentified sharp objects stabbed her in the back.

She should have known nothing about real life ever met her expectations. After Sasuke broke her heart it had become increasingly obvious that what Sakura wanted, Sakura didn't get. Even now when Kakashi was _inside her_ and making love – no – _fucking_ her, she wasn't sure she 'had' him. There was nothing about his demeanor that was tender or loving. There was nothing to suggest he was doing anything other than slacking his frustration and lust.

Then suddenly he'd stopped. "_Shit_, Sakura…" he ground out roughly, gathering his arms beneath her. "Don't do this to me."

He lifted her straight off the desk and held her tight against his front as he walked back towards the bed, still connected to her. A hard kiss was pressed to her mouth, but Sakura's heart wasn't in it. It was difficult getting passionate about something when she was in so much discomfort.

"I am _not_ finishing alone," he said harshly, momentarily slipping out of her to drop her down onto the soft mattress with a surprised 'oof!' and a lot of bouncing. He was on top of her only a moment later, slipping between her legs stabbing himself back inside her. Sakura grunted at the pressure and clawed at the duvet cover so hard it was a wonder it didn't rip. But something was different now. Kakashi balanced himself with one hand against the bed beside her ribs and the other clutching her hip. His angle had changed and for a moment it made no difference… then he gave a slow, deep thrust, and Sakura realized it made all the difference in the world. A small wave of indistinct pleasure curled in the pit of her stomach, too faint for her to believe or trust at first. But then he thrust again, once more pushing up against that small bud of sensitive nerves above her entrance. The faint tingle of pleasure speared through her once more, stronger and more overwhelming than before.

For the first time, a moan tangled in her throat and her hips surged to encourage his. The discomfort retreated with each thrust, replaced instead by the return of a ruthlessly intensifying pleasure. Kakashi picked up the speed again, and Sakura was right there, feeling each burst of pleasure at every thrust and desperate to feel the next.

"I've fantasized way too long and way too hard to screw this up," he explained thickly. "In my fantasies you always come first. You always scream my name. You have no idea how much I've wanted you. How often I wind up having to jerk myself off because of you. How hard it was _not _to push you up against the side of the elevator in that little nurse's outfit you were wearing and fuck your brains out."

Amazingly, despite what they were doing, it was his words that made her blush. But there was no stopping the intense surge of arousal she felt at his confession, and any dim thoughts of correcting him about it being a _medic uniform_, were tossed out of the way to make room for the overwhelming pleasure. It was growing and she moved more furiously against him, knowing she was close to that irritatingly elusive climax.

It was upon her faster than she'd ever known it to be, catapulting her hard into oblivion as the world shrank and darkened. Her back snapped taut, she cried out is name, and her body went wild. As the sensations crested and washed over her, she shuddered and convulsed, desperately reaching out for something to hold onto and anchor herself – the bed covers, his shoulders, his hair, the pillows, her own hair. It was far more intense and prolonged than she had ever realized an orgasm could be, with pleasure so intense it was hardly pleasure and simply madness. It was almost a relief when the shaking finally began to subside.

Kakashi's pace had sped up, quickening with an urgency she recognized. She loved the helpless little groans that escaped him, the heat of his body and the power contained behind every coil and thrust. She'd never seen him in such a blatant state of abandonment. Even when she tended to the most horrific injuries he managed to acquire, he never gave too much away of what he was thinking or feeling. It was a rare moment when that impenetrable, blank mask of his persona cracked to give her a peek of what lay beneath, and Sakura wished it could go on forever.

But it couldn't. He was too close, and after a moment he gave a harsh cry and shoved himself so deeply and tightly against her that she gasped, a flutter of arousal accompanying the sudden thrust. Grasping her hips tightly, he ground and rocked against her with stifled grunts, spurting hotly into her.

Only the sounds of their harsh breathing followed. Kakashi sank against her weakly, as if drained of all energy, and pressed his bandaged forehead against her damp one. He kissed her once in a slow slide of sated and content passion, before carefully easing out of her (which hurt almost as much as his initial entry now that her flesh was raw and swollen) to slump onto his back beside her.

"Ow," he croaked, holding a hand to left temple where his sharingan appeared to be giving him trouble.

"Ow," Sakura agreed. She rubbed her thighs together experimentally, wincing at the discomfort and the telltale stickiness of his semen.

"Sorry," he said flatly. "I didn't meant to be so rough."

"No, it's fine!" she said quickly, not wanting him to feel bad. "I wouldn't be a very good kunoichi if I couldn't take a little rough sex!"

Her smile died rather quickly as the full impact of her words sunk into her own brain. _Oh god… I just had rough sex… with my _sensei!

Some part of her childhood died a swift, sound death right then and there. And frankly, good riddance.

Kakashi didn't seem encouraged by her reassurance. "I probably should have pulled out at the end," he said softly.

"No, it's ok," she said just is quickly as before. "I-I'll take care of it tomorrow."

"Right, yeah…"

The silence that followed was as deafening as the roar in her ears. Sakura started at the ceiling, waiting for her heart to slow and her breathing to even out. Kakashi seemed to be way ahead of her, breathing as easily as if he'd been lying there all day.

So much for cuddling and meaningful post-coital discussions about feelings, she thought. But then what had she expected? Kakashi wasn't a naturally squishy person prone to sentimentality. Who knew what he was thinking now? Certainly Sakura didn't. But she could take a wild guess.

Hesitantly, she rolled over and shuffled close enough to press against his side, one hand resting on his furthest shoulder while her chin rested on his closest. His arm moved to make room for her, but that was as far as the reciprocation went.

"Do you regret it?" she whispered against his neck, her tone cautious and uncertain.

"Do you?" his murmured in his patented drawl that gave absolutely nothing away.

Her fingers tightened against his vest. "Just answer the question," she said weakly.

"Never ask a question you can't answer yourself." Cold, hard, and inrelenting.

Sakura bit her lip. She didn't know what to make of that kind of answer. But perhaps that said it all? He didn't want to hurt her feelings and say 'yes', but he knew she'd detect the lie instantly if he said 'no'.

It was hard not to cry, but somehow she managed. She pulled away from him swiftly and sat up, ignoring his surprise and the twinges of pain between her legs. In a few swift tugs she'd fastened her vest and straightened her stained skirt back into place.

"What are you doing?" he asked, bemused, sitting up as she slid off the bed onto shaky feet.

Sakura glanced at him but she had to look away again just as quickly. "No, you're right," she said stiffly. "This was a mistake. I should just go." She made a beeline for the door, and reached out for the handle with a trembling hand.

"Sakura."

Her fingertips paused against the steel handle.

"I tried to tell you… I can't give you want you want," he said quietly. "It's not fair on you and you don't deserve it. And… I didn't want you to hate me for it."

She turned her head slightly and looked at him guardedly, taking in his ruffled, mused hair, his kiss-soaked lips, and pants that were still parted unashamedly. Under normal circumstances she would have been embarrassed, but things like nudity and sex suddenly seemed very trivial. They were not what the problem between them was.

"How could you give me what I want?" she whispered, "Kakashi, you won't even try."

The door slammed behind her as she fled away down the corridor, heading straight toward the elevator. She punched the button more times than was necessarily, hoping to god that it would arrive before Kakashi came after her. But despite her willing, it still took a painfully long time, and after a few seconds Sakura had to force herself to acknowledge that Kakashi wasn't giving chase and trying to make amends. If she'd made the wrong assumption, he wasn't trying to correct it.

Sakura didn't know how that made her feel.

The elevator doors opened with a soft grinding, and without looking Sakura surged into it – only to bowl straight into Kiba.

"Whoa!" He caught her arms and managed to spin them around to avoid falling. Beside him, Hinata was blinking in surprise. "Hey, Sakura, what's the…"

He stopped talking and suddenly looked at her as if he was only just seeing her. "Whoa…" he whispered.

Sakura knew why. You didn't have to be an Inuzuka with a superior olfactory glands to be able to smell the sex on her. Quickly she shook his hands off and stepped back into the lift, furiously hammering the button for her floor.

"Are you ok?" Kiba asked uncertainly.

"I'm _fine_," she ground out, and was spared further interrogation when the doors slid shut and enclosed her in the elevator, alone.

Almost immediately her hands covered her face and she swore harshly under her breath.

Yes, you didn't have to be Kiba to know Sakura had just been soundly fucked, but it helped in order to identify exactly _who_ she'd been with. And Kiba wasn't good at secrets. He was almost as bad as Naruto about keeping things to himself, and she knew that by the time the sun rose tomorrow, most of the guests in the hotel would know what had happened.

"Shit, shit, _shit_," she muttered brokenly to herself.

Now would be a perfect time to invent a jutsu that could reverse time. If she could do it all again, she'd simply have skipped the attempt to get to Ino's room and simply broken into Naruto's.

The elevator slid to a halt and Sakura quickly composed herself before the doors opened, just in case there was anyone on the other side. Fortunately the hallway was completely clear… save for the brunette snoozing beneath her doorway – one red rose laid out on his chest as if he were a corpse.

Sakura didn't fancy confronting him now. She'd only tear him a new one, and that wasn't fair. Instead she slipped quietly over to the door of Sasuke's room and tried the handle. Predictably, it was locked. But just as predictably, Naruto's wasn't. She let herself inside silently and scanned the room unhappily. Sans one semi-nude Copy Nin on the bed, Naruto's room was an exact replica of the one she'd just departed from. The bed beckoned her with it's wide creamy covers and plush pillows, and as much as she wanted to just sink into the mattress, fall asleep and forget the soreness that was now beginning to radiate through her entire body, as well as the cause of that soreness, Sakura did _not_ want Naruto staggering in later to find her on his bed stinking of sex and Kakashi.

She showered for the second time that night. It was a wonder how she managed to do it though, as she was so tired she could barely lift her arms to wash her hair. She simply went through the motions as if in a trance, washing the evidence of their activities from her thighs and scrubbing her skin till she was relatively certain his smell was gone. The fact that no matter how hard she scrubbed, his scent still lingered in her nose was probably psychological rather than physical. Eventually she gave up and dumped her vest and skirt into the sink to wash out the stains and cover any odor with complimentary hotel soap, then draped the wet clothes over a towel rail to dry off.

As a rule, Sakura objected to wearing Naruto's clothes for various reasons – the primary one being it was probably hazardous to her health. But with her own clothes out of reach, Sakura had little choice. She located a pair of clean blue boxers at the bottom of his suitcase which she felt safe to wear (because honestly, when was the last time Naruto wore underpants?) and pulled on one of Naruto's old and slightly worn black shirts.

At that point she couldn't stave off her exhaustion anymore. She collapsed into the bed and buried herself under the covers, breathing in Naruto's smell and dearly wishing it was Kakashi's.

She'd made a hugely erroneous call of judgment that night, and she knew it. She'd given her first time away, and for what? It had not made things any clearer between her and Kakashi. Naively she'd thought that giving into lust would make him open up to her. In a way it had, but no sooner had it been over, he'd clammed straight back up. It made the whole experience seem cheap and worthless… and she only had herself to blame.

_You asked for it_, that cruel voice in her head said. The voice that didn't like her very much. _You practically ordered him to fuck you. You deserve what you got_.

Hot tears ran down her temples and into her hair. Her nose burned. Her throat closed and she was so desperately close to the verge of uncontrollable sobbing that it hurt. She really did hate Kakashi right then, but at the same time she found it difficult to blame him. When he'd looked at her from the bed he'd looked far younger and more vulnerable than he actually was. It wasn't his fault that he had the emotional capacity of an orange. He was one of the glibbest men out on the battlefields and could easily talk his way out of any situation. He could articulate himself better than any man she knew… but when it came to articulating his feelings, he was utterly useless.

_Why_ had she expected that to change for her?

Sakura dozed, slipping in and out of sleep. Her dreams replayed the same scenes over and over again in her head, from the rough way Kakashi had taken her to bumping into Kiba in the elevator. Then, in case she needed reminding _again_, the whole scene played out again.

Only once did the dream shift and change to take an original course to stop tormenting her with her own memory. She dreamt that in the sated aftermath, he held her close, spooning her from behind with his warm arms wrapped around her. He would sigh contentedly into her hair and tell her she smelled wonderful. And then she would turn in his arms and curl up against his chest, whispering his name as she moved her hand in suggestive circles over his hip.

"Sakura-chan, are you ok?"

It was odd that he sounded so much like Naruto, and that he kinda _smelt_ like Naruto too. Sakura's dream faded in spots and she blinked up sleepily into a pair of confused blue eyes. Rather slowly it dawned on her that she was pressed up rather intimately against a real Naruto with her real hand on his real hip.

"Ah!" She recoiled in a mixture of shock, horror and humiliation. "_Naruto_! Were you just spooning me?"

"Did you just call me 'Kakashi'?"

"What are you doing here?"

"This is my room! What are _you_ doing here?"

Sakura suddenly remembered the circumstances that had led her there. Her palm hit her forehead with a slap. "Oh. Sorry. I couldn't get into my room. There was a brunette blocking my way."

"Oh, ok. But why are you wearing my clothes?"

"Uh… the clothes I was wearing were wet."

"Why?"

"I fell into a puddle," she lied.

"Oh." Naruto looked confused. "_Are _there any puddles in Suna?" he asked.

"Yes, but they're not filled with water." She wanted to change the subject before she had to elaborate that lie any further. "Where's Sasuke?"

"In a mood," he said, shrugging.

"Oh, no…" she breathed. "Did he fail?"

"No, the loser passed." Naruto snorted capriciously. "But now he's grumping because he's only a chunin, not a jonin. You should have come to the celebration. Where were you?"

"I was busy with work," she lied again, looking down at the pillow between them.

"Well," he said thoughtfully. "You can go back to your room if you want to now. I didn't see anyone there when I came up."

She nodded but didn't move. "Um, Naruto?" she started quietly. "Can I stay here the night?"

"Sure!" he said quickly. "But why? Is something wrong?"

Sakura hovered on the verge of telling him the truth, but she knew he would only fly into a rage. All she wanted right then was to not feel so alone. "I'm ok," she whispered. Her voice betrayed a slight tremble though, so she offered him a shaky smile, even as tears had glazed her vision. "I messed up a little."

Naruto looked upset. "Sakura-chan…"

She pressed the moisture away by pressing the blanket to her eyes. "I'm so tired," she said. "I just want to sleep."

"Ok," he said softly, still looking concerned.

Sakura snuggled a little closer to him, grateful for his presence but still deeply missing Kakashi's. "One thing though," she said gently.

"Yeah?"

"Take advantage of me and you die. Horribly."

"Gotcha."

* * *

TBC

* * *

Next chapter will probably be the last chapter, sadly. 


	18. In which Sakura has a late night visitor

A/N: 10,000 plus words and it's not even the last chapter. Le sigh. XD The last chapter was winding itself up to be longer than I expected, so I'm splitting it up into two. Sorry for the delay in posting. My internet was temporarily cancelled.

* * *

_Where did I go wrong?_

_I lost a friend_

_Somewhere along in the bitterness_

* * *

Morning brought the end of the Suna 'vacation'. The Konoha shinobi were to gather at the east gate at midday and from there they would begin their long trek home, hoping to all the resident patriot Konoha deities that nothing had happened in the absence of the Hokage and the most elite village ninjas. But Sakura was _not _looking forward to the trip home. There was now a legendary stiffness in her back and a soreness between her legs that made it difficult to walk. She woke up feeling as if Tsunade had put her through another rigorous training session the night before – the type that usually rendered her bed-ridden for the whole of the next day. 

It wasn't quite that bad though, as evidenced by how quickly she managed to scramble out of bed the moment Sasuke walked into the room and fixed both her and Naruto with the ultimate Uchiha glare. "I leave you alone for _one_ night…"

He was probably being ironic and not at all serious, but one never liked to take such chances with a former psychopath, so Sakura quickly disappeared to get dressed and left Naruto to deal with the Last Surviving Sourpuss.

Her morning had not improved when she remembered she had a serious problem to take care of either. As much as she wanted to purge Kakashi's name from her mind, she couldn't avoid the fact that she _had _had unprotected sex with him last night, and he _had _finished inside her. Sakura didn't observe her own cycle closely enough to be sure, but she suspected that it was probably the worst time of the month to take risks. While Sakura was quite open to the idea of having children of her own at some point, 'at some point' did not mean 'anytime soon'. She had her work and training to concentrate on and she was still _only just _earning enough money to support herself. Pregnancy was simply not an option she could take.

And no matter how cute the thought of little children with fluffy white hair was, when Kakashi didn't even want a relationship, it was doubtful he'd want kids either.

This was a thoroughly depressing thought however, and so Sakura quickly left in search of the nearest chemist. Her morning was destined to turn a darker shade of bad when she discovered the chemist didn't stock morning after pills. In fact, none of them did.

"It's wind country regulation as ordained by the daimyo," the man behind the counter informed her. "Low populations, you see. Birth control is prohibited."

Sakura fidgeted angrily. That was downright _backwards_. "Is this the same daimyo who slashed funding for Suna and gave most of the missions to foreign ninja villages?"

"That's the one," the chemist nodded.

"You should assassinate him," Sakura told him quite seriously.

"Oh, we did," he replied quite cheerfully. "Not long after Gaara-sama was inaugurated actually. But obviously we're still straightening things out with the new daimyo, so it'll be a while before things change. Come back next year and I might be able to help you."

"Might be a _bit_ late by then, considering what I'm looking for," she told him flatly.

"Oh, right, yeah." He shrugged. "Sorry."

It was a good thing then, she decided, that she was heading back to Konoha that very day. She was a little annoyed at herself for not having the foresight to write an elaborate transportation jutsu scroll like Jin's that would take her instantaneously back to Konoha and save her the hard trek.

By the time Sakura left the chemist it was getting on to midday, and Sakura headed back to the hotel to pack her bag. It didn't take long as she hadn't brought very much, but the bag was slightly harder to close than before due to all the complimentary hotel freebies she'd stuffed into it. As she moved to swipe the unused notepad from the old desk in the corner she found her hand lingering on the marked, scarred surface. It was virtually identical to the one she and Kakashi had…

Her hand curled into a fist and clamped against her thigh. It hurt thinking about it. In a way she wanted to forget about last night, but both her physical and emotional aches only served as a constant reminder. She was beginning to regret it. _Deeply_. But it wasn't the act itself that she regretted so much as what had happened after it.

Sakura wondered who was to blame. Herself for overreacting to an evasive answer to an important question? Or Kakashi for being so infuriatingly aloof in the most intimate moment of her life?

Slowly making her way to the meeting point at the east gate, Sakura kept her eyes peeled for him, though she hadn't quite figured out if she wanted to avoid him or not. When she arrived, the majority of Konoha shinobi were already congregated there, clustering together in pairs or groups wherever there was available shade. She spotted Naruto and Sasuke sitting beneath the awning of a shop window – Naruto talking animatedly with his hands while Sasuke remained typically impassive. But there was no Kakashi in sight, so Sakura made her way towards her former teammates, suspecting that he was simply late again.

Then Ino stepped in front of her.

"Sakura," she barked, arms folded and eyes fierce. The mere fact alone that she'd used Sakura's actual name rather than her unflattering nickname was a sure indication she was serious. "Is it true?"

There could be question of what she was referring to. Instantly her eyes found Kiba, who until that moment seemed to have been looking at her, but the moment the waves of murderous intent began rolling in his direction, he suddenly became engrossed in counting the number of sand grains at his feet. He was clearly the culprit.

Ino sighed irritably. "Sakura, I am _very_ annoyed with you," she said.

Sakura looked at her feet.

"You finally got your leg over Kakashi-sensei and you _didn't_ come tell me about it!"

Sakura shot her an incredulous look. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize that was a condition."

"It's ok. As long as you tell me one thing…"

"And that is?" Sakura asked apprehensively.

"How big was it? Seriously"

Sakura spluttered and turned bright red. "I'm not going to tell you that!"

"Ah… so he was a bit on the small side?" Ino said cannily. "Well don't worry – size isn't everything."

"Ino!" she hissed. "He wasn't small!"

"Compared to what? A pipe cleaner?"

Sakura blushed again. "If you must know…" After a quick surreptitious glance around to check no one was looking, she gave Ino the a brief, rough measurement with her hands.

Ino gasped and lifted her fingers to her lips in amusement. "Oh, _Sakura_…" she whispered coyly.

Uncertainly, Sakura said, "He told me it wasn't that big…"

"It's bigger than the one I get to play with, so not bad. Not bad." Ino looked like was enjoying a very nice mental picture. "Not bad at all…"

Sakura felt a twinge of jealousy, but that was customary around Ino, and she was confident that Ino would never make her fantasy a reality. "How many people know?" she asked quietly.

"Well, I haven't told anyone and – no, don't look at me like that – I_ haven't_ told anyone. The only reason I know is because I overheard Kiba talking about it with Hinata. I don't know if anyone else heard though... I expect quite a few though, since Kiba doesn't exactly talk quietly, if ya know what I mean."

"Oh, _god,_" Sakura whimpered, pressing her hands to her face.

"Well, to be honest, you don't have to worry, Sakura," Ino said with a shrug. "People won't care who you sleep with. We're ninjas. Our motto is to take what you can get, whenever you can get it. We could all die tomorrow, la la la – you especially with your clumsiness. But if you can find genuine love, and you both really care for each other, what right does anyone have to say it's wrong?"

Sakura stared at her, a little taken aback. "Ino… that almost sounded profound."

"I'm just sayin'…" Ino said with mild annoyance. "People won't give you a hard time over it. And if they do… fuck 'em. Besides, once they realize you're serious about each other, they'll just learn to accept it. I mean… you are serious about him, aren't you? You said you love him, right?"

"I do, but…"

As she struggled to find a way to explain something even she didn't understand, Sakura became aware of a commotion to her left. She immediately recognized Tsunade's voice, and from her brusque, loud tone, it appeared she wasn't happy. It may have had something to do with the dozen or so chunin gathered around her trying to push paperwork under her nose.

"…well, how the hell am I supposed to know?" The Hokage was looking hassled, and Sakura could see she was probably fifteen seconds away from wrapping her hands around the nearest throat and throttling hard.

Before Sakura could move out of range, she was spotted.

"Sakura!" Tsunade snapped her fingers authoritatively. "Get over here now."

Ino shot Sakura a rather unsympathetic smirk and beat a quick retreat, leaving Sakura to face the music.

"Some time today, Sakura," Tsunade snapped. "Come on, girl. I've seen tectonic plates shift faster than you walk."

Sakura sloped over reluctantly, knowing she was about to be roped into taking on at least half of Tsunade's workload. Without fail, Tsunade shoved at least three documents into her arms the moment she arrived and then went back to her argument with a Suna cleric.

"I told you, I'm not responsible for those kinds of things. You'll have to take it up with the man himself," Tsunade barked.

"We would, only we can't find him. He checked out last night," the flustered cleric responded weakly. Clearly he wasn't up to the task of matching the Hokage's temper.

"Well then where is he?" Tsunade demanded, looking around. "Someone! Find me Kakashi."

A cold lump formed in Sakura's stomach. "What's happened?" she asked quietly.

Tsunade made an irritated noise, but didn't answer the question. "Did you check him over like I asked?" she directed at Sakura in a way that was more accusatory than anything.

"Yes," Sakura replied firmly. "What's wrong with Kakashi?"

"Like hell I know," Tsunade said shortly, looking at her watch. "If he's not here in five minutes we're leaving without him and I don't care if-"

"Tsunade-sama!"

Shizune was running up to the group, out of breath. In her hand she was brandishing a slip of paper. "A message for you, Tsunade-sama," she panted.

Tsunade snatched it up and read it through narrowed eyes. Her lips thinned and the corner of her mouth quirked down, and after a moment she scrunched the note in her fist and began striding away. "We're leaving."

"The accounts!" the Suna clerics and chunin called after her.

"Post them to me – _I don't care!_" Tsunade yelled back, not breaking her stride.

Sakura ran after her, which did nothing for her stiff muscles. "What about Kakashi? Aren't we waiting for him?"

Without a word Tsunade passed her the rumpled note Shizune had handed over and Sakura slowed to a stop as she smoothed it out to read. She recognized Kakashi's familiarly precise and neat handwriting in an instant.

……………

_Dear Esteemed Godaime-sama,_

_I am heading back to Konoha early. Please give my apologies to my students and the hotel staff. I'll reimburse them later. And my apologies to yourself for any inconvenience caused._

_Thank you, _(and here he'd inserted a one-eyed smiley face)

_Kakashi_

…………………

Reimburse them…? Sakura looked down at the three folders in her hand. The first one appeared to be an invoice from the hotel they'd been staying at. They wanted repayment for damages to room 4J.

Kakashi's room.

Sakura read the list of damaged items in the invoice. One smashed lamp, one fried electrical fuse, one broken chair, another badly damaged desk, one shattered window, two chipped nightstands and three dented walls.

The first few items she could account for. She seemed to recall knocking over a lamp while she and Kakashi had… and she also remembered him telling her about breaking his chair. But when she'd left his room late last night, she could have sworn that everything else had been pretty much intact.

"Sakura-chan!"

She looked up in confusion to see Naruto waving at her.

"Aren't you coming?" he yelled.

She nodded faintly. "Right…"

* * *

The journey back was at least ten times worse than the journey coming. There seemed to be twice as much sand as she remembered, and if anything, it was hotter. It didn't help that her back and legs ached like hell and it was difficult to walk in a straight line without waddling. And if people hadn't noticed that she was walking like she had a wedge driven between her legs, they'd probably noticed the bruising – bruising that Sakura only just discovered herself when she crouched to tighten the straps on her boots and found a distinct series of purple marks on her thigh that might match the fingertips of a large, masculine hand. 

If healing jutsu could remove bruises, Sakura would have done so right then and there. But all she could do was straighten up, tug the hem of her shorts as low as possible, and hope no one was looking too closely at her backside.

But that was a bit too much to ask of some people.

"What's with the bruises?" Naruto asked, pointing to her leg.

"Banged myself on a door," she said shortly, in a sharp tone that hinted he should drop the matter.

"Ah, ok," Naruto said, picking up on the hint. "So… how was Kakashi today?"

Sakura snapped an alarmed look on the boy. What was that supposed to mean? Did he know? Who else knew? Did _everyone_ know? How many people would she have to kill? "How should I know?" she barked defensively. "I've not seen him."

"Oh… it's just…" Naruto rubbed his hair. "Has he woken up yet? Last I saw he was pretty comatose and you were the one looking after him. We haven't left him behind have we? I mean, no disrespect to Gaara, but Suna's a pretty vicious village. Should we be leaving him there unattended?"

Annoyed at herself for overreacting, Sakura sighed and shook her head. "No… he woke up last night and he went home early. He's probably back in Konoha by now. You don't have to worry about him."

"How is his sharingan?" Sasuke asked, which was a safer way of saying "How is Kakashi?"

"His eyesight's weaker, but he's essentially fine. He'll live to fight another day at least." But right then, Sakura didn't want to talk about Kakashi. She didn't even want to _think_ about him. Just hearing his name made her chest constrict and a lump form in her throat.

He'd hurt her. And the more she thought about him, the more it hurt. At least Sasuke's rejections had been consistent. He'd never budged an inch to give her false hope so the final realization that he would never love her like she loved him had been gradual and not at all surprising really. His final rejection hadn't torn at her heart as quietly as Kakashi was now.

What scared her most was that Kakashi didn't even have to do very much to crush her. He only had to be himself. Giving evasive answers to important questions and literally skipping town without telling her. What was she supposed to think? How was she supposed to feel? Did he mean to hurt her? Did he even know how much it hurt? Did he care?

Perhaps she had only herself to blame? He'd warned her again and again and she'd never listened – too caught up in her own idea of love to even consider how impossible it was. She'd never looked to the future and imagined what kind of romantic relationship between them would be like. To her gut-wrenching misery, she saw nothing. She couldn't picture it. There was no future. He'd _warned_ her, and all she had done was dig herself in so deep there really was no going back and fixing the tattered remains of what had once been a treasured bond.

Maybe it was best if she simply never spoke to him or looked him in the eye again. Then maybe what was left of her fragile self-esteem would survive under the deluded belief he was simply a fuckwit. Better to avoid him and live in false hope than face him and the reality that perhaps _she_ was the naïve idiot… not him.

These thoughts dogged her throughout the journey. Even when the group stopped to take refreshments and give the genin a break from walking, she could not move her mind past the matter. Every time she mentally prompted herself to move on and think about something else, she would inevitably find herself drawn back to Kakashi. Kakashi and his distant soul and warm lips and the way he'd looked and sounded when he'd hunched over her and abandoned himself to pleasure.

A sharp pang of arousal struck Sakura deep in her belly and her thighs clenched unconsciously against it. But then it was gone and she felt as cold and withdrawn as ever.

Sasuke noticed her uneasy silence. "Are you ok?" he asked, sipping water from his flask as if it was expensive ceremonial tea. He didn't used to drink like that. Sakura suspected it was either something he'd picked up around Orochimaru's lot or just the kind of eccentricity people acquired when they realized they were the last of something.

"I'm ok," she said softly, clutching her own flask so tightly her joints had turned white.

From the corner of her eye she saw Sasuke trade an unreadable look with Naruto. She hated it when they did that. It meant they knew something they weren't telling and one was silently asking the other for permission to speak. It turned out to be Naruto.

"Why did Kakashi go back early?" he asked a bit too casually.

They knew something was up, and what with several of their peers already knowing what had happened courtesy of Kiba, it was only a matter of time before they realized exactly what was bothering her.

Naruto and Sasuke were the most beloved friends she had… but there were just some things she could not explain.

"Naruto says the reason you were in his bed was because you were upset last night."

Sakura looked up at Sasuke with wide eyes. "I wasn't upset," she protested futilely.

"You were crying," Naruto pointed out.

"Yeah, but that wasn't…" she didn't know how to finish that weak excuse.

They traded another look and, with their usual perfect collaboration and teamwork, they closed in for the kill.

"What did he do to you, Sakura?"

"You can tell us, Sakura-chan."

She panicked, realizing they'd jumped the worst conclusion they could imagine. "He didn't do anything to me!" she said with growing frustration, shoving a hand through her hair. "Nothing I didn't want him to do…"

The confused silence from the boys was almost painful. "Then," Naruto began with a frown, "why were you crying?"

Sakura shook her head. "I told you. I messed up. It went all wrong and the last thing I need right now is for you two to give me the third degree. _Please_. Don't ask any more questions."

They were furious. She could see it in the obvious way Naruto was glaring at the shaking bento box in his hand that was beginning to emit cracking sounds as he squeezed too hard. Sasuke's anger was far more introverted, but she still picked up on the way a scowl had deepened on his face and he was staring off into the distant horizon.

The expressions of two people contemplating murder.

"Stop it," she said sharply, surprising them both. "This is my problem, not yours. You're _not _to go vigilante on Kakashi."

"He made you cry!" Naruto protested.

"Sad books make me cry! Chopping _onions_ makes me cry!" she snapped. "Sasuke's made me cry and – hell – even you've made me cry sometimes, Naruto!"

"But-"

"Don't interfere! You'll only make things worse and I won't forgive either of you as long as I live."

"Sakura-chan!" Naruto protested loudly. "Can't we just rough him up a little?"

"No."

"Not even shout at him?"

"No!" she ground out.

"What about if we steal his books and bury them in the woods?"

Sakura opened her mouth to automatically deny him, but quickly thought twice. "Ok, that you can do. But _nothing_ else, ok? You're not to even talk about this with him. I don't want him thinking I came crying to you two, because I _didn't_."

Sasuke sighed and shook his head. "I don't know what it is you see in him," he said bluntly.

"Neither do I," she whispered.

She honestly couldn't remember anymore.

* * *

Sakura had, the moment she'd stepped through the gates, intended to head home, unpack, cry a little, visit the bathhouse to soak her aching muscles, go back home, cry a little more, and then fall asleep contemplating the many numerous ways in which you could gut a copy nin without him actually dying on you. 

But Tsunade had other plans.

"Sakura. Come on," she ordered with another snap of her fingers to get the girl's attention. It was either a sign that Tsunade was feeling extra hassled and snappish that day, or just because Sakura was looking particularly slow and dull-witted. Whatever the reason, Sakura followed the snapping fingers reluctantly to the Hokage tower where she was unceremoniously dumped with a mountain of paperwork.

"This needs to be done by tomorrow, or else the elder's will have my neck on the line," Tsunade explained brusquely. "I won't manage it on my own."

Sakura looked at the work in despair, feeling as far away from the sanctity of her apartment and bed as she had in Suna. She was never going to get home at this rate. "Can't you get someone else to help?" she asked her master. "Kotetsu or Izumo, maybe? I'm really tired, Tsunade-shishou."

"So am I, but you don't hear me complaining," the older woman replied. "And no, I can't get anyone else's help. You're one of the few people I can trust implicitly and these documents are of a very sensitive nature. I'd ask Shizune, but I've already set her to work on something else."

Sakura sighed.

"You're pale," Tsunade said, looking at her shrewdly. "Have you eaten today?"

Sakura thought for a moment. "No."

"Not trying to diet again, are you? You remember what I told you about how fatty deposits build up faster once you start starving yourself-"

"Yes, I remember, and no, I'm not dieting," Sakura said heavily. "I'm just tired."

Tsunade shot her a fixed smile. "Well, the faster you work the sooner you get home."

The Hokage's logic was appalling, but Sakura was not in a position to argue. She was tired and sore and suffering a queasiness that was the result of forgetting to eat all day, but she had no excuse to slouch off her work. Losing her virginity was not a valid reason to take sick leave.

Ruefully, Sakura picked up a pen and looked out of Tsunade's office window to view her home village. The sky was darkening fast now and she could see the street lanterns flickering on, speckling dots of orange and pink between the dim rooftops.

Kakashi was down there somewhere.

Exactly where was anyone's guess.

Most people Sakura knew had their frequent haunts around town. Naruto could, at any time, be found either at his home, Ichiraku, on route to either aforementioned places, or out training in one of the fields. Sasuke was less adventurous, as he had a strict routine that he lived accordingly to. From midnight to breakfast, he would be at home. From breakfast onwards he would be training, getting lunch with Naruto at twelve, and then go back to training until it was time for bed. Occasionally his routine varied, but that was the essential blueprint of his day.

Kakashi, on the other hand, was notoriously hard to pin down. Whereas most people could find Naruto and Sasuke within half an hour, finding Kakashi was a task that sometimes took the best part of the day, and even then it was far more likely that he'd find you first. One afternoon he'd be standing at the cenotaph, the next he'd be lounging on the bakery roof with a book resting on his face. One time, he'd been found hanging around the Sandaime's left nostril up on the Hokage monument. When he wasn't at home, he could be anywhere. When team 7 had first met, he'd explained rather vaguely that he had lots of hobbies, and as the years had gone by, these hobbies had turned out to mostly consist of walking around a lot and avoiding anyone who wanted to trap him into doing some work.

If he knew what was good for him, he would be at home giving his head a rest. A coma was a big deal, no matter how brief it was, and if he didn't get sufficient sleep, he would only harm his health.

And speaking of health…

"Oh!" Sakura nearly shot straight up out of her seat.

"What?" Tsunade asked, looking up.

Sakura looked towards the window and her epiphany quickly subdued. "Nothing…" she muttered, turning her eyes back to the paperwork.

There was no point worrying about birth control now. The shops would have closed by now and they weren't likely to open again till next Monday.

By then it would be too late.

* * *

After falling asleep twice on her surprisingly cushiony mound of paperwork, Tsunade grew frustrated enough to send her home. She hadn't given Sakura a hard time over it, but Sakura knew when her teacher was disappointed in her, but she honestly couldn't help it. The day had been long and trying, physically, emotionally and mentally. Sakura headed back to her apartment, striking off most of the things on her list of things-to-do until she had only one want: 

Bed.

But the moment she stepped into her apartment, she knew something was out of place. Normally when she left for a few days, she would come back to a cold room that smelled faintly of dust and emptiness. Tonight all she could smell was Kakashi. For a brief moment she thought it was simply her nose playing cruel tricks on her mind again, but before she could reach for the light switch, she noticed a familiar silhouette on her bed.

Sakura let her bag slide from her shoulder and onto the floor as she leant back against the door. There was no point in turning the light on. The moonlight from the window was enough to se all she needed.

There was no relief at the sight of him. Just a rising note of fear and dread that heightened with each passing beat of silence. Right then, all she wanted to do was melt into a puddle and dribble away beneath the gap of her door and hope he didn't notice. Talking to or confronting Kakashi was low on her list of priorities right then… partly because she was hoping to put it off for as long as possible. All she wanted to do was go to bed, but that would be somewhat of a problem when he was sitting on it.

"I've had a really bad day." She hated how weak her voice sounded. How cracked and broken it came out, as if she was close to tears. Forcefully, she made the effort to strengthen her tone and clear the air in the room. "Should I find it creepy that you're sitting alone in my apartment with the lights switched off?" she asked in false casualness. "Are you trying to strike a mood or something?"

His form stirred slightly. "I couldn't find your light switch."

"Oh…" She pointed across the room to the wall beside her closet. "It's over there. But you kinda have to touch the wall before you touch the switch otherwise you'll get an electric shock. So… perhaps it's good that you didn't find it… um…"

"Interesting," he said, in a tone that implied it really was not. "I got something for you."

Sakura's heart nearly stopped. He'd gotten her a present? Was this his apology? He was holding up a box – not big enough to contain chocolates or flowers, but definitely big enough for jewelry. What had he bought her? A necklace? Earrings? A _ring?_ Was he going to ask her to marry him?

"Are you going to stand there like a lettuce leaf all night?" he prompted when she didn't move.

Hesitantly Sakura moved toward the bed and reached out to take the box. Her cold fingers brushed his warm one, causing a tingle of awareness to shoot up her arm and straight to her heart. It was either him or she was in the early stages of a cardiac arrest.

As she read the embossed lettering on the box that caught in the moonlight, her heart sank.

"I knew you wouldn't get back before the shops shut so I got it for you."

"When they fought, Asuma used to get Kurenai flowers," she said softly, picking at the edges of the cardboard packet. "Shikamaru gets Temari ribbons and Naruto buys Sasuke ramen. What do you get me? You get me _birth control!"_

The anger that had been simmering beneath the surface all day bubbled forth, moving her arm to throw the packet back at him. Kakashi turned his head away as the box bounced off his chest and clattered to the matted floor. Irritatingly, she could not ruffle his feathers. It had been so easy last night, but today there was a calmness wrapped around him like a secure blanket that not even accusations of true perversion and admissions of lack of underwear would be able to penetrate. It was familiar. This was how he used to be around her before…

Before he'd started wanting her.

Slowly, Kakashi reached down and picked up the fallen box of pills. "You'll thank me tomorrow when you realize the shops are closed for the weekend. By Monday it would be too late."

He held the box out to her again and this time she regarded it stonily. She had the urge to throw it back at him again – preferably in his face this time – but his reasonable patience made her feel immature. The way he could turn a situation around and make her feel small, childish and petty when she had every right to her indignation was infuriating. It annoyed her all the more because she knew he wasn't doing it deliberately. That was just how he was.

With as much calm as she could muster, she took the box again and crawled onto the bed behind him to set it down on the windowsill. Then without further ado, she flopped down onto her reassuringly familiar mattress and curled herself towards the wall with her back to Kakashi. "You can go now," she said shortly, even though there was a small voice inside her pleading for him to stay. Tears were beginning to sting her eyes, but she somehow managed to maintain a steady voice. "Thank you for the _gift_."

Kakashi didn't move or say anything for a long time. The room became unbearably quiet till the sound of her own breathing seem to infringe upon it. But she had no more to say and it was simply up to Kakashi to decide his next move.

She felt him shift on the bed as he gave a slow sigh. "Do you hate me?"

It was a simple question, but the answer was one too complicated to define in a single 'yes' or 'no'. Yes, she hated him because right then she wanted to hurt him more than anyone else she'd ever known. She wanted to kick and scratch him and say horrible things until perhaps he got a little taste of the pain she was feeling. But how could you truly hate someone when you loved them too much to carry out such retribution?

Her inability to answer seemed to say it all to Kakashi. The mattress dipped and creaked as he pushed himself to his feet. "I'm sorry," was all he said. "I hope one day you can appreciate how much"

Sakura rolled over sharply to see him walking toward the door. Fear clenched her heart and right then she was deadly certain that the moment he walked out this room, this whole devastating and exhilarating chapter of her life would be closed and shut away for good. If he walked out that door, there would never be another chance.

She sat up abruptly with cold tears dampening her cheeks. "Do you love me?"

Kakashi paused, but he didn't look back at her.

"It's a simple question," she told him quietly. "One I've already answered, so now it's your turn."

He turned back to her with his hands shoved in his pockets and a humorless laugh in his throat. "That's not a simple question. That's the most complicated and difficult question in the entire history of questions."

"Only to people like you," she pointed out scathingly.

"People like me?" he echoed softly. "You mean ninja."

Sakura's eyes narrowed at him, but he wasn't looking. Instead he was running an inquisitive finger along her bookshelf, examining the titles in the moonlight. "Love is a fleeting emotion, Sakura," he said, pausing his digit on a copy of biological chakra infusion reference book. "It never lasts. All it does is create bonds that will inevitably be broken and then people get hurt. There's no point or reason to it." His attention moved to the next book on the shelf and he tugged it out to examine the cover. It was her favorite book _'The Greatest Love'_, well-thumbed and tatty from years of reading. It was a classic. But judging from the unimpressed look Kakashi gave it, he didn't agree. "No point, no reason… these are unnecessary things to shinobi."

She couldn't quite believe the words coming out of his mouth. Was this really the man who valued the lives and well-being of his own comrades above his missions? For as long as she'd known him, he'd never been a stickler for the rules (unless they were ones he came up with). The shinobi guidelines were meaningless to him and she'd always thought he was a firm believer in the human side of being a ninja. Why all of a sudden was he spouting stuff that wouldn't be out of place of the Konoha Ninja guidebook?

"Do you seriously think like that?" she whispered to him, stricken. "Since when has love ever been a weakness?"

Kakashi snapped a surprised look on her, as if he'd only just realized she was there. His visible eye clouded over with a mixture of what looked like guilt and uncertainty. Sakura watched, bemused, unable to comprehend what he was thinking.

Slowly, he replaced her book on the shelf and ran his fingers over his masked lips thoughtfully. "Do you believe in curses?" he asked.

That was an easy one. "No," she said bluntly.

"Neither do I," he murmured. "So how do you explain why all the people I have loved are dead? My father, my teacher, my first and last best friend… they're all gone. How can you say that love doesn't hurt people when I've been paying the price for it my whole life?"

Sakura didn't know how to respond. Her heart tugged in empathy for him, but there was nothing she could say that could fix the lifetime of hurt he'd carried. 'I'm sorry' seemed pathetically small and inadequate. She couldn't even begin to imagine what it would be like to lose the people she loved, as Sakura was one of few lucky ninjas who still had everyone she'd started with. Her mother and father were alive and well, her friends were strong and capable, and although there had been a few near misses in their time, they were still all there.

Fresh tears gathered as she struggled with her frustration. She wanted to convince him that she could be his friend. That she could bear his love and that she would never let him down, but he would never believe that. And she just _couldn't find the words_…

Suddenly Kakashi was before her, reaching down to wipe away the tears with the warm cotton of his gloves. "Don't cry," he told her quietly. "It's not your problem., it's mine. I'm sorry for bringing it up."

Sakura sniffed loudly with a shuddering breath as she reached up to feel his hands against her face. The gentleness shocked her. After all the pain and uncertainty she'd been harboring since last night, all it took was one kind touch to let it all come flooding out in the most undignified way. How could he do this to her? How could he be cold one minute, making her think she'd gotten it all wrong, and then the next show her such warmth that she remembered why she'd fallen for him.

"N-no," she croaked, snurching dreadfully and clutching the back of his hands tightly in case he tried to pull away. "I want you to. I want you to talk to me about things. Anything. I w-want everything and I don't care if you can't give me everything I want because all I need is you, and I'm pretty sure that's a line from 'The Greatest Love', but I really mean it and I don't know how to make you see that I… I'd do anything for you. Even if it means just h-having to put up with you."

Kakashi sighed and gave her an exasperated sigh. He knelt down before her to place his hands on her shoulders. "You're a very sweet girl."

Sakura nodded with a wobbly kind of sob.

"And you deserve better than having to put up with me."

"Can't you just try?" she whispered, her voice breaking. "That's all I want."

He looked away and began to withdraw his hands. Sakura grabbed them in her own in an effort to stop him, but she quickly stilled when she noticed the backs of his fingers seemed unusually rough. Peering down at him, she caught the sight of torn, scabbed skin washed a pale silver in the light of the window. She looked up at him quizzically, but he only scowled at his hands as if they had somehow betrayed him. In a way, they had.

"You trashed your room didn't you? After I left? Why did you do that?"

Kakashi closed his eyes and didn't answer.

Sakura dashed the tears from her eyes one last time and took his hands roughly in her own. "Hold them still," she ordered, before placing her fingers against the backs of his and letting her chakra course around their point of contact. The blue glow of the healing jutsu lit the space between them and flickered in the fathomless depths of his eye.

"You never answered my question," she said quietly, watching his face rather than her work. "Do you love me?"

"I told you," he began tiredly. "Love only provides a vulnerability to be exploited-"

Sakura's flow of chakra halted and the room plunged into darkness again. She gripped his hands tightly. "But do _you_ love me?"

His head dropped forward ever so slightly, eye hooded and unreadable. Sakura was not having that. In an instant she reached up to tug his hitai-ate off completely – noticing he'd removed the bandage prematurely, and dragged her fingers down his face, taking the mask with them. She stopped only a moment to admire the beauty contained in the face before her, then took him by the back of the head to drag him forward into a kiss.

He didn't resist, although he was slow to respond. After one light press against mouth, she pulled back, but only far enough away for her lips to still brush and catch against his, coaxing. Kakashi looked inscrutable, if not a little tensed, and so she pressed another soft kiss against his mouth to gentle tap her tongue against his slightly parted lips, politely asking for reciprocation. Slowly, reluctantly, he gave it, reaching a hesitant hand to her jaw as he returned the slow, charged kiss. She kept it soft and light with more inquisitiveness than anything else, testing his reactions to each slide of lips and brush of fingers on skin. Because although Kakashi's voice could freeze up and his eyes could shift to the floor, his kisses never deceived. Each time he'd kissed her, she'd felt something true and honest. There was no hiding his feelings when his lips met hers, whether they were feelings of fear, relief or wild and out-of-control lust.

She felt the apology for last night in the gentleness of his fingertips on her nape, dusting through the soft, wispy hairs he found there. She found the answer to her question in the way those fingers shook imperceptibly.

Sakura gradually broke the kiss and drew her arms tightly around his neck to press her face against her shoulder. His hands touched against her back softly, and for a moment she simply hung there against him, breathing in his scent and enjoying his warmth.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she whispered, barely audible to even her own ears. Something that had been coiled unconscionably tight inside her since her mission with Matsura was finally loosening. A sense of peace and calmness that had eluded her for so long was finally there in her hands.

Kakashi didn't answer, but she didn't care.

"How long?" she asked dimly, nuzzling her nose against his masked neck.

She felt him sigh against her hair and squeeze his arms around her fractionally more tight. "Since your inauguration."

Sakura nearly leapt back in surprise. She settled for giving his ear a rather shocked stare. "But… that was over a year ago!"

"I noticed," he responded dryly.

Struggling to get her head around that notion, Sakura blinked rapidly. "But… _really?_"

"I don't know. I just… noticed you that day for the first time." There was something in his voice that had changed. He sounded almost relieved to be getting it off his chest. "I had no doubt that you would pass; you're the best kunoichi in your generation – _ouch_ – village – the best kunoichi in the village."

Sakura let go of his ear with her teeth. "Continue."

"I knew you would pass… but I guess it still surprised me. I didn't fully appreciate how far you'd come until I saw your name down in the jonin registry alongside mine. And you were beautiful that day. When you smiled, everyone wanted to smile."

"Why didn't you _say_?" Sakura whispered into his shoulder, letting her head drop forward in exasperation.

"What was I supposed to do?" he asked. "You were sixteen and you were still getting over Sasuke. How would you have reacted to your teacher declaring his feelings for you out of the blue? I wasn't sure it was love then anyway. I figured it was just some effect of work-related stress and decided that if I kept away from you the temporary infatuation would fade."

Sakura's eyes squeezed shut. "You _were _avoiding me. All that time it was deliberate?" In a way it hurt to have that long suspicion confirmed. No one liked to know they were being avoided. But on the other hand, she now knew the reason, and for that she could forgive him.

Sort of.

"I didn't want to make you uncomfortable…" he said.

"No, you just wound up making me feel unwanted," she said bitterly. Even so, she wasn't really mad enough to pull away from him. Instead she just pulled tighter against him with every intention of trapping him there until he had finished confessing. "It _hurt_, Kakashi."

"I didn't think any absence on my part would bother you," he told her quietly. "I didn't realize it did until this last mission. I'm sorry."

"That didn't stop you from trying to avoid me again though," she pointed out.

"I panicked," he admitted. "It only got worse throughout the mission. Every time I thought something had happened to you, I swear I had a small heart attack. I didn't need to kiss you in that gallery. I know a dozen kind of A-rank genjutsu that could have hidden us from sight, but… it was the first thing that popped into my head, and I should have dismissed it but once it started… I shouldn't have done it."

"I didn't mind," she reminded him. "I thought it was quite nice actually."

"And what if you had minded?" he pointed out.

"I would have smashed your face in before I let someone I didn't like that way take advantage of me. You didn't kiss me – I _let _you kiss me" she said firmly. "If someone gets fresh with me without permission, my usual method is just to lop their rocks off, so just thank your lucky stars."

"This is true," he said, and to her relief he sounded amused.

"You don't have to feel guilty about anything, Kakashi," she said seriously. "I don't regret anything that's happened between us."

The hand that had been smoothing over the back of her head stilled. "What about last night?" he asked. "Do you regret what happened then?"

She closed her eyes and remembered the pleasure he'd given her. And the pain.

"A little…" she whispered. "It wasn't how I imagined it would be, but then I didn't really know what to expect. I don't really have a lot of experience in… you know, _that_ department. I mean, the only other experience I have is with Matsura…"

"When I touched you between your legs before," he said, with such straight-forwardness that Sakura couldn't help but blush, "you flinched. Was that…?"

"It sorta reminded me of the way he touched me," she said with a grimace. "But don't worry! Only for a moment."

She thought she detected a soft shudder run through him. "The last thing I ever want to do is remind you of that man."

"Well… being with you is pretty different than being with him," she said slowly, thoughtfully. "With Matsura it was like having a wardrobe topple on you with the key still in the lock."

Kakashi took a moment to digest that ghastly simile before begging the question. "And me?"

A soft sigh escaped her lips. "Being with you was too different to compare. I liked it when everything got going. But it _did_ hurt, and I was too sensitive afterwards and you weren't sensitive enough, and the fact that I didn't know how you really felt about me didn't help, and perhaps it would have gone smoother if we hadn't been so freakin' pissed at each other, but what's done is done and… no. I don't really regret it. I wouldn't change what happened for the world. I'm sure it'll be much better next time."

He interrupted, disentangling himself from her arms. "I think it would be best if there wasn't a next time."

Sakura stared at him, suddenly short of breath. "What?" Hadn't he liked it? Had she been bad at it? Sure she had tried to throw him off at one point, but she'd gotten into it eventually.

"When I told you love was a weakness, I meant it." She tried to speak but he cut her off again. "Besides which, I'm not very good at it, and you really do deserve someone who can love you properly… someone who sees things the way you do. Not some perverted old goat who'll just bring you crashing down to earth and make you cry every other day."

"But – I don't want anyone else!" she protested. "I want you!"

She couldn't wrap her head around the idea that you could love someone but not want to be with them. It defied everything she knew about love. Occasionally in sad romances it wasn't all that strange that the man would have to leave to take care of some important matter before he could commit fully to a relationship. She used to attribute this to Sasuke – certain that if she gave him enough time and space to fulfill his goal of murdering his own brother, perhaps he would be able to devote himself to love (and in a way, she'd been right, except about the part where _she _was the one he devoted himself to).

But Kakashi didn't have that excuse. He held no major goals or dreams to aspire to the way Naruto and Sasuke did, and while this was one of the things she liked about him, it also meant there wasn't anything holding him back from a relationship. He had no interest in holding grudges and hunting down old enemies. He did not have his sights set on becoming a famous hero. All he did was traipse around town with a book in his hand and would continue taking whatever mission came his way until the day he didn't come back from one. That was his purpose in life. Why was there no room in that for her?

Or was she simply making the same mistake of applying her romantic ideals and fantasies to real life again? She didn't understand Kakashi's reasons, but then, it was a rare day that she ever understood anything about him. She knew that he didn't think like her, and sometimes she forgot that he was actually a man fourteen years her senior. He was from an entirely different generation than herself and he'd lived and fought through wars that were nothing more to Sakura than boring facts and dates in her academy books.

He was different than herself. Perhaps too different.

"You understand, don't you Sakura?" he asked carefully, touching her face. Sakura flinched away from his hand, letting him make no mistake that she _didn't_ understand at all.

"But you love me…" she whispered, staring at his arm. "And I love you."

Kakashi shrugged. "It isn't always enough. Could you honestly picture us as a couple? I'm not the one you're looking for, Sakura. You have expectations I can't meet and I'm not going to get into this with you only for you to realize that fact at a later time. I can't be a lover to you."

Her breath hitched anxiously and she realized she was on the verge of another round of tears. In hind sight she was grateful for the moonlight to hide how splotchy and puffy her face was probably becoming. "Can't you just _try_?" she begged. "Please, Kakashi."

He shook his head and his hair and cheekbones caught the light in a way that made him intolerably handsome compared to how she felt. If the Lover's Cactus had been there to see him, it would have bloomed on the spot in a sheer fluster. "I've been trying for over thirty years. All I can ever succeed at doing is making girls utterly miserable, and the last person I want to make miserable is you. I can't change who I am, Sakura."

"Kakashi, stop it…" She coiled her fingers into the material of his sleeve, feeling as if every word he spoke was another hammer blow to the chisel against her heart. It hurt. It hurt more than being run through the chest with a sword. It hurt more than having poison slowly eating away at her insides. It hurt more than anything Sasuke could ever inflict on her. "Please, don't…"

"In ANBU, we used to have follow a saying. 'What happens outside the village stays outside the village.'" He rested a hand on her knee, giving it a comforting squeeze. "We don't have to bring the issues back home with us. We can forget what happened and just go back to the way things were when-"

"I can't forget!" she cried out aiming a strike for his face. He had to lean back to avoid the slap, and when she tried to follow it up with her other hand, she promptly felt her wrists pinned down against the mattress. He leaned over her, restrictive but not threatening, and for a moment Sakura was too angry to do more than huff a soft expletive and tense up against his vice grip. "I _can't_ forget and we _can't _go back to the way things were before! It's too late! And I don't want things to be that way again."

She paused, breathing hard as she met his gaze defiantly. When his eyes dipped along the line of her bare, exposed neck, hers narrowed.

"And you don't want that either," she said slowly. "Do you?"

"Sakura-"

She surged upwards unexpectedly, her mouth crashing against his. He jerked his head back and released her in his surprise, and Sakura took the opportunity to grab his vest and drag him back to press another desperate kiss against his mouth. "Come on," she breathed, using the same dare as before. "We can try again. You still want me, don't you?"

Kakashi was struggling to keep her hands from divesting him of his vest as well as avoid her mouth. "Sakura – don't do this-" He attempted to stand up and step back, but Sakura went with him, dragging him down to the floor beneath her.

If he really wanted to push her off, he could easily have done it, she decided. He acted coy, but she recognized the way he reacted to her – saw the way his eyes closed when she pressed hot, open-mouthed kisses along the underside of his jaw, heard the way his breath hitched when she rubbed her front against his and felt the way his fingers weren't trying to push her away at all.

Sakura rode on instinct, relying on his reactions in order to decipher what pushed his buttons the most. He took a wonderful shuddering breath when she sat back and ground her hips against his, cradling the growing bulge she felt there between her thighs. But it wasn't comfortable. The excitement was cancelled out by the sting of still-tender flesh, and she knew that if they had sex now it would hurt like hell. But the fear of what would happen if she let him up to walk out the door was what drove her on. Sakura was desperate. She was too close to losing him completely.

Kakashi grunted beneath her, catching hold of her hips to either halt her grinding movements or support them – it was hard to tell. "If you intend to use sex as a weapon, Sakura, you should probably master it first," he rasped. "Points for effort, but your grimace of pain is giving you away."

Her motions stilled and her face twisted with a hundred emotions she could not name. "What do I have to do to make you love me?" she demanded angrily, tugging at his lapels.

He shook his head as hips flexed beneath hers pointedly. "This isn't love."

Slowly, the lines of pain and hurt dropped off Sakura's face until she was regarding him almost blankly. Just as slowly she slipped off him and sat on the floor, hugging her knees in a way that probably looked quite childish, but at that point she didn't care. Kakashi remained on the floor, trying to catch his breath with a hand pressed against his stomach.

"I'm bad with feelings," he said matter-of-factly into the quiet room. "I've messed up every relationship I've ever had. Every girl I have ever taken to bed has gone away hating me because I inevitably let them down in some way. And even if we did go through with it… who's to say it would be worth it? A teacher can't take a student as a lover. People won't accept it. How can a relationship last under that kind of pressure? How long can you guarantee your feelings for me will last when people frown at us whenever we're seen together?"

Sakura's head was slowly shaking from side to side. "You're wrong," she whispered hoarsely. "Wrong, wrong, _wrong_. We're shinobi. We have to take what we can get where we can get it because our lives are short and if what we have is real then no one has any right to look at us and disapprove. They will accept us eventually… because I have no intention to ever stop loving you."

"Sakura…" He breathed her name in exasperation, which was a bit rich. If either of them had any right to be exasperated by the other's behavior, it was her.

"You have to give us a chance, Kakashi," she pleaded softly. "I can't promise I'll still love you next month, or next year, or into the next decade, and neither can you. But isn't that the risk everyone takes when they fall in love? What's the point in having a heart if you're not willing to use it in case you end up getting hurt?"

"Sakura, it's you I'm worried about," he said patiently. "I told you, I can't give you what you deserve. You're better off getting someone younger and more sensitive than lumbering yourself with an emotional wasteland like me. Any relationship we have is bound to be dysfunctional at best. At worst… traumatizing."

Sakura's eyes squeezed shut and a lone tear rolled down her cheek. "You're wrong," she rasped.

He rolled upright. "Am I?"

Sakura held her breath and said nothing. He had to be wrong. All she wanted, needed and deserved from him was for him to be there to love her. That was all she was asking. When she had nightmares she wanted to wake up beside him so he could hold her and listen to her incomprehensible hysterics the way he had in that backwater inn during their mission. She wanted to be able to talk to him again, trading dry jokes and joint popping contests without fear and restraint like they had before they realized they were in love. All she wanted was what they had had before… interjected with the occasional kiss, hug and occasional fumble between the sheets as they straightened out the kinks in their love making.

All they needed was for him to give her a chance…

"I'd like us to be friends again," she heard him say, breaking her out of her thoughts. "I hope we can be."

Sakura stared at him for a long, hard moment, lips pressed in a thin line. A new revelation suddenly sprouted from the turbulent confusion and anger that clouded her thoughts, and suddenly the tension drained from her body, the corners of her lips lifting in a slight smile. "Ok."

"What?" He blinked, taken by surprise.

"Ok," she said, nodding. "We'll go back to being friends. No more avoiding each other and no mentioning anything that has happened between us."

He nodded as well, but much slower and more cautiously. "Right…" He suspected something, and frankly he was right to.

"Just friends. Not teacher and student or commander and subordinate. We'll be friends."

And then she'd give him three days.

Three days before he came crawling back needing more.

* * *

TBC 


	19. In which Kakashi decides

_A/N: Last chapter, numbering at roughly 14000 words, so it's twice as long as usual. Hope you enjoy it. :3_

* * *

_Think of me when you close your eyes,_

_But don't look back when you break all ties,_

* * *

Sakura left her apartment with a spring in her step the next morning. She offered strangers unsolicited smiles as she passed them by, thoroughly confusing most of them and downright alarming the rest. Some of them assumed that this was a girl who was thoroughly enjoying the fine, temperate Konoha weather after having suffered through the blistering heat of the desert for the past few days. Others assumed she'd simply gotten laid. None of them would have really believed that she'd effectively had her heart ripped out and stomped on last night. 

She'd be lying if she said Kakashi hadn't hurt her, but what he didn't realize was that he'd unwittingly opened up a window of opportunity for Sakura to take advantage of. Because the way to a copy ninja's heart was not through his pants; it was through friendship.

Technically, she supposed she already had his heart; or had at least earmarked it. Her name was stamped across the organ in bold, but Kakashi was not going to give it up without a fight. He needed time to see that he could trust her with his heart, and that he himself could be trusted with hers in return. All they needed was a common ground – a foundation with which to build from. A friendship.

However, Kakashi's friendship was not an easy thing to gain. Even now she had her doubts that he considered her a friend according to most people's definition of the word. He had acquaintances and colleagues, bosses and subordinates, but all those people were kept at arm's length. Kakashi was a perfectly friendly person who could get on easily with just about anyone, but he seemed to fear getting close to others like a hypochondriac in a leper colony. As far as she knew, he'd never invited anyone to be a 'friend' to him. In his haste to reverse their relationship back into safe territory, he'd inadvertently presented her with the very thing she'd been asking for.

Even if it took ten years, she would prove to him that they could succeed together.

But three days was really all she needed.

Now, Sakura had seen movies and soap operas and read dozens of books on subject of love, and she knew plenty of ways in which a man could be enticed. Mostly it seemed to involve wearing less clothes, acting like a completely different person and bending down in provocative poses while flirting with other men in an attempt to bring the green-eyed monster to the table.

Sakura knew that if she really wanted, she could make Kakashi crumble at her feet with barely more than a crooked finger in his direction. He'd proved how little resistance he had to her body last night. She may still have lacked the kind of experience someone like Kakashi had, but that didn't seem to matter. If she gave him enough provocation, he would respond in kind.

But Sakura had done all that, and she knew this was not the way to solve anything. Only a few days ago, she'd presumed that sex was the solution; that if she could just push him far enough to forget his reasons and restraints, he would be hers.

She was a little wiser now. Sex was just sex, and not the consummation of love she had believed it to be. Or at least, that was how Kakashi saw things. Kakashi's heart and body were in two very different places, as was the case with most exemplary ninjas who could detach themselves from the earthly restraints of this pesky thing called 'emotion'. While Sakura saw love and sex as pretty much the same thing (and still did, despite all that had happened), to Kakashi, physical intimacy did not broach emotional intimacy. To get him to open up to her completely, she would have to come at him from a purely platonic angle.

Gaining Kakashi's trust would be hard. Flirting with other men, and dressing up to appeal to him sexually was only going to be counterproductive. Besides which, she wasn't all that confident with her flirting skills, and she would be too self-conscious to openly flaunt her body. Sex was not her arena. However, being a friend was precisely what she excelled at. With a teacher like Naruto, she could say with confidence that she'd learned from the best.

Sakura arrived in the doorway of Kakashi's apartment block and carefully selected the call button for a Mr. 'Takahashi' in apartment six. Of course, Mr. Takahashi's apartment was actually Kakashi's… he just had yet to find the time (since he'd moved in ten years ago) to change the name next to his buzzer. She bounced on the balls of her feet impatiently and stared out over the morning crowds on the street while she waited for a reply. It was a long time coming. And just when Sakura was about to buzz him again, a crackle sounded through the speaker, followed by a very rough just-got-out-of-bed-and-gurgled-some-glass-shards kind of voice.

"…Mm?"

Kakashi was less of a morning person than she'd realized. Although, she reckoned this was probably the first night of proper sleep he'd had since he'd been hospitalized. No wonder he sounded rough.

"Hey, it's me," she said brightly. "Get dressed. We're going to the hospital."

There was a long, fuzzy silence on the other end. She could almost see him leaning against his living room wall in his bed hair and pajamas, squinting at the floor in confusion and dread. Or perhaps he didn't wear pajamas. Perhaps he was naked?

Ooh…

The speaker crackled again. "What?"

"Hospital: we're going there," she said more slowly. "You need a check-up on your eye."

Another dull beat of silence, and then…

"What?"

Sakura sighed. "If you don't come down in five minutes, I'm breaking in and dragging you there, Kakashi. You know I will."

"Sakura," he croaked through the intercom, "I don't think this is wise…"

She'd been prepared for this, and had lined up an impenetrable line of defense that she'd learned from Naruto. "Kakashi, as your _friend_," she said, stressing the operative word, "I'm worried about you. Please come to the hospital just so we can check you over and make sure everything's healing as it should?"

It was dirty and underhanded, playing on his own desire for them to simply be friends to coerce him. Friends worried about each other didn't they? Surely she was well within her rights, as a friend, to escort him to the hospital where she could lift up his shirt and check his heartbeat? Maybe true friends would not take the opportunity to ogle his body, but _details_, _details_…

"Alright," she heard him say tiredly. "Give me five minutes."

He came down after fifteen, looking for all appearances like a man who had resigned himself to a firing squad. This image wasn't improved much when the moment he laid eyes on her, his shoulders dipped in even further defeat. "I like your… hat thing."

"Oh…" she said, reaching up to touch it self-consciously, just as she'd done in the elevator in Suna. "It's just part of the medic uniform…"

Ok, so perhaps she _was _supposed to be coming at him from the platonic angle, but it didn't hurt to give him a _little _reminder….

Why Kakashi found her uniform a turn-on escaped her. It was quite conservative with a skirt that was actually longer than the customary shorts she wore beneath it and a tailored jacket that pinned together at one side and left absolutely _everything_ to the imagination. Her arms were covered, her collar fastened tightly around her throat, offering no glimpse of cleavage that Jiraiya's fictional nurse uniforms often gave, and her hat was simply an old-fashioned female equivalent of the hood that the male medics had to wear. Sakura had looked in the mirror that morning and had never felt so _un-_sexy in her life.

But for some reason it had gotten to Kakashi that one time… and for that she would wear it again. Just to watch his face crumple in despair if nothing else.

"Come on," she chirped, slipping her cool fingers through his warmer calloused ones without permission, before proceeding to drag him out onto the street in the direction of the hospital. Out of mercy she released him once he was moving at a satisfactory pace since she could feel the tenseness radiating through him at their point of contact. She tried a sunny smile on him, but to her chagrin he wasn't looking. He seemed preoccupied in a search for something as he patted down his vest and pockets and peeked into the pouches on his belt.

"Lost something?" she asked out of curiosity.

"My book…" he muttered, growing increasingly frantic in his search.

"Oh." Sakura had the decency to bite her lip and look away guiltily.

Instantly Kakashi was onto her. "What did you do?"

She gave him an affronted look. "_Me?_ I didn't do anything!" she protested. "It was Naruto and Sasuke."

Kakashi looked confused. "Why would they-"

"Because they know what happened, ok?" she said bluntly. Her face grew hot and she had to turn away, pretending to examine the buildings on her other side. "They weren't happy, as you can imagine, so they promised to get even with you. You should be thankful they didn't carry out their initial threat of beating you to a pulp."

A burning gaze was drilling a hole in the back of her head, but Sakura didn't dare meet it. "You told them?" he asked quietly.

"No," she said quietly. "They figured it out. And even if they hadn't they would have found out eventually because I'm sure by now that half the village knows thanks to Kiba."

"You told _Kiba?" _he asked.

"No!" She turned to him angrily. "I didn't tell anyone! They all just figured it out! And what does it matter? It's over now. It's in the past. That chapter in our lives is closed and we're moving on. It's all just water under the bridge."

At that point Sakura ran out of euphemisms for 'dumped' and sealed her lips while anxious fingers twined together in a damning display of guilt. But what did she have to feel guilty about? She _hadn't_ told anyone, and even if they knew, she was determined that it wouldn't matter. Because if it _did_ matter… well, then Kakashi would be right and this wouldn't work.

They walked on in further silence until Kakashi cracked. "Then… what did they do with my book?"

"Books," she corrected. "Well, um, I think they might have buried them in the woods."

Kakashi thought for a moment. "Lot of woods around here…"

"Just get Jiraiya-sama," she pointed out. "He can sniff out porn like a bloodhound." It was a skill rivaled only by Sasuke's ability to recognize the chemical content of hair-care products at fifty paces.

"Nifty skill," he admitted. "But it's not _all _porn you know."

Sakura snorted her disbelief, earning her a bewildered look.

"It's true!" he protested. "Jiraiya has some very witty and poignant social commentary running through the entire series."

"And that's what you're giggling at all the time?" She raised an incredulous eyebrow.

"I do not giggle," he denied, in a slightly lower voice than he would normally use.

"You do. You giggle like a little girl." She almost laughed at his pout. "It's what makes all the genin so afraid of you. It's not because you're a bully or a hard-ass – it's your giggle. It's enough to make anyone wet the bed."

"Now you're just making fun of me," he sighed.

Sakura held up her thumb and forefinger to indicate a small amount. "A little bit," she confessed.

Kakashi shook his head. "Remember a time when you used to respect me?"

"Hmm?" She playfully bumped against his side. To his credit, he only stumbled a little. She did the same thing to Naruto sometimes and the poor boy would go flying. "I still respect you. Some days more than others."

Yesterday, for instance, had been a pretty low point.

"I see," he mused.

By then they were already at the hospital. Sakura led him indoors and paused at reception to pick up a clean chart and check the roster of who was in and who was out. Examination room twelve on the fourth floor was empty, so Sakura brusquely beckoned Kakashi to follow her to the elevator.

Belatedly, as she pressed the call button, she remembered what Kakashi had told her about the last time he'd been stuck in an elevator with her while she was dressed in her uniform…

Stealing a glance at Kakashi didn't tell her much. As the doors slid open with a polite _bing_, they both stepped inside and turned to watch them slide shut again. While it was at least twice as roomy, the compartment lacked the mirrors of the hotel elevator, and smelt strongly of disinfectant. Sakura stared furtively at the chipped nail polish on her toes while Kakashi watched the security camera in the corner above him.

"I know what you're doing," he said quietly.

Sakura lifted her gaze, but only as far as the control panel on the wall. "Good. I hate it when I have to explain procedures to patients."

She knew that wasn't what he meant, but she wasn't going to roll over and give up just yet. Besides he didn't _really_ know what she was doing. He only thought he did. The reality of what she was trying to achieve was something more complex than a cheeky little reminder of one of his fantasies.

The moment the doors opened again, Sakura strode out and heading straight for the examination room. At the end of the corridor, Tsunade with standing with Shizune, going over someone's medical chart, and the moment she spotted Sakura and Kakashi she gave a faint acknowledging nod and went back to her conversation.

Sakura pointed at the door to room twelve. "You can wait in there. I just need to get some things."

"I don't have to take anything off do I?" he asked dryly.

"It's hard to stop you sometimes," she teased cheerfully, heading off to the storage cupboard. As she passed Tsunade and Shizune, she heard her shishou give a very definite sigh.

"That takes me back, Shizune," she said, stepping aside to let Sakura into the cupboard she was blocking.

"Tsunade-sama?" Shizune asked. Sakura listened in absently while she searched the shelves for supplies.

"Bringing your lover to work to play some authentic doctor," said Tsunade, amused. "We've all done it."

"Tsunade-shishou!" Sakura hissed, turning to give the Hokage a bewildered look, a blood pressure armband dangling from her hands. Mercifully, Kakashi had disappeared into the examination room, but that was still no guarantee that he couldn't hear them.

"What?" Tsunade asked, innocently. "I've no problem with it, Sakura. Just as long as you clean up after yourselves."

"But – I'm – we're not – _shishou!"_ Sakura grabbed for a spare optometric kit and clutched it to her chest. "I'm just giving him a check-up, that's all!"

"Yeah, I used to give Dan the old check-up," Tsunade sighed nostalgically to a vaguely smiling Shizune. "I sometimes used to let him play the doctor, but he kept confusing the jugular with the subclavian. It was very annoying, and I wouldn't let him do it after that."

It was best just to grab what she needed and make a quick escape. Although, she thought on hindsight, as she hurried back to the examination room, this was a _good_ thing. Tsunade was clearly aware that something was going on, and she had taken it all in her stride. Sakura only hoped that the rest of Konoha took it as well as her.

She could only _dream_ her parents took it well. Fortunately, they did not move in the same social circles as ninjas so it was unlikely they'd find out, and Sakura had no intention of enlightening them… at least not until the wedding date was set.

When she arrived back in the room, Kakashi was seated on the paper covered bed against the wall. His clothes were all still on his person, much to her dismay, but what had she expected? A completely stripped copy-nin waiting for her with a rose between his teeth?

"I want to look at your eye," she said straight away, unzipping the optometry kit. "So off with the hitai-ate."

Kakashi wasn't the easiest patient in the world. While his stoic high-tolerance for pain was a godsend at times, his cooperation was abysmal. When she flashed the light in his eyes, he squinted and tried to turn away. "Stop being a baby," she ordered shortly, grabbing his chin to drag him back. "Focus on the wall behind me."

"Your head's in the way," he pointed out.

"Pretend it's not," she said, shrugging. "And stop blinking."

"It's hurting my eyes."

Stab the man multiple times in the chest and he'd brush it off as a flesh wound. Shine a little penlight in his eyes and he'd literally dissolve into tears – although, to his credit, a lot of people's eyes watered during eye exams of this nature. Sakura took her time, hovering her lens over the sharingan and his ordinary eye, comparing the two. She had to lean very close to do this, and she was aware that Kakashi had actually stopped breathing. He didn't like close scrutiny in any form, but she had a feeling it was more to do with that he didn't want to breathe in her soap and shampoo any more than necessary.

"Ok," she said, leaning back, having made him hold his breath long enough. "Your right eye is fine. Twenty-twenty, same as usual. The sharingan however is… well, it's deteriorating. Have you noticed you're going increasingly myopic?"

He glanced around the room, closing one eye and then the other, comparing the two. "A little…" he said mildly, which probably meant 'a lot'.

"If you keep using the mangekyou, it'll only get worse," she said, biting her lip. "What's more, you might even trigger a degenerative condition that will leave you blind completely, whether or not you use it."

"I know," he said blithely, as if he didn't care.

"You're _only_ to use it in an emergency, Kakashi."

"You think I didn't?" he shot at her. "You think saving your life is not an emergency?"

She pouted at him. "I won't forgive myself if you lose an eye over it."

He stared at her for a long moment before turning away. "It's not my eye to lose."

With a sigh, Sakura moved away to fetch the stethoscope and the blood pressure kit. "Whoever's it is, you need to take care of it. Now lift up your shirt, I need to listen to your heart."

Well, that wasn't strictly true. She was pretty sure his heart was fine, but it was a standard check-up and she was well within her rights to ask him to strip as much as possible.

Giving her a ever so slightly dirty look (and probably knowing _exactly _what she was up to) Kakashi unzipped his flak vest and shrugged out of it. His black overall followed, and, at her prompting smile, so did his nylon vest and mask. Sakura gave him a cheerful, platonic smile and warmed the stethoscope between her hands before placing it against his chest.

His heart beat strong and loud in her ears. An unbreakable rhythm that drove an unbreakable man. Sakura could fall asleep listening to that sound; each thump weaved a feeling of warmth and comfort, making her eyes slide shut with a soft sigh as she bitterly wished he had let her lie a little longer in that hotel bed with him, so she could have pressed her ear to his chest and listened to this wonderful sound.

After a moment she realized she'd been listening a bit too long and have herself a sharp mental shake. She moved the stethoscope down to his stomach and under his arm, listening from all angles. "Turn around, please," she told him, and he complied somewhat stiffly. Presented with his back, she pressed the stethoscope to the left of his spine and leant in, close enough to smell the warm tangy scent of his skin. "Cough, please."

"_Ahem_."

"Louder."

"_A- HEM_."

Everything seemed to be in perfect working order, but Sakura lingered on a bit, her eyes roaming his back. It really was a splendid example of male perfection. Not so long ago she had healed a nasty burn near his shoulder, but now there are nothing but flawless skin. She had to admire her own handiwork… though she simply admired _him_ more.

Her gaze wandered further down his back where something caught her interest and brought a frown to her face. A long, pale white line punctuated with dots on either side ran around his waist on his right. The scar had to have been at least six inches long, and there was no mistaking it was surgical. If Sakura didn't know any better, she would be thought he'd had a kidney operation.

Interesting…

She touched the scar inquisitively and felt him flinch. A slow smile spread across her face. "I thought you said you weren't ticklish?"

"I'm not," he retorted.

"Oh?" Sakura said, then swiftly ran a finger from the base of his spine up. Kakashi gasped and his back snapped straight, trying to escape the sensation. Sakura merely smiled at his perturbed expression and moved away to set her stethoscope down. "You appear to be in good nick," she informed him, leaning on the desk opposite his gurney. "Have you had any headaches?"

"One, but it was mild," he admitted.

"Any more nosebleeds?"

"More?" He looked disconcerted.

"When you fell unconscious, you had a posterior epistaxis, probably brought on by hypertension," she told him. "It was quite a bad one. It made your eyes bleed."

Kakashi stared at her, visibly shocked. "What…?"

"In bad cases, the blood from your nose gets through your sinuses and weeps out your eyes, you see," Sakura explained, gesturing at her own face. "I was worried you'd utterly wrecked your eye, but fortunately is was just your blood pressure going through the roof. You probably just saw my panties again, that's all."

The poor man looked as if she had hit him over the head with a golf club. 'Panties' were a delicate subject matter with this guy, and when he was trying his hardest to keep some professional distance between them, he was sent reeling every time she threw him something very _un_­professional

"It was a joke, Kakashi! Jeez, did you leave your sense of humor in bed this morning? I knew I dragged you out the door too fast," she chirped, beaming at him. "You can put your clothes back on now. You're free to go."

She turned away to scribble down meaningless stats on her chart – all of which pointed to 'fine'. Behind her, Kakashi dressed himself, and it was only when she heard the zipper of his vest that she turned around. He regarded her warily when she shot him another smile, though she didn't blame him. For a girl whose heart he'd broken, she was sure acting very nice. He was on to her… but he had yet to figure it out.

Sakura reached behind her to pick up a container from the desk. "This is for being such a good patient," she teased, holding out the jar of lollipops.

"Uh, thanks but no thanks." He turned her down graciously.

Sakura shrugged. "Your loss," she said, selecting one for herself and sticking it in her mouth. "So where you off to now?"

"Off… somewhere," he said, eyes narrowing on her. He seemed especially interested in the way she was sucking on her sweet, a method which involved pushing it back and forwards into her mouth. "I have to… uh… train the little things…"

Sakura pulled the lollipop from her mouth with an audible _pop_, unable to see what was so interesting about it. "Your students?" Then she suddenly remembered. "Oh! Are you coming to the celebration tonight?"

"What celebration?" He was inching towards the door, backing across the room as if he didn't want to turn his back on a formidable opponent.

"Sasuke passed, remember?" she said, grinning. "We're having another celebration at the bar tonight."

"What was wrong with the first one?"

"I wasn't there, and apparently the curfew interrupted things so they want a second go."

"Ah."

"Are you going to come?" she asked, looking up at him beseechingly as she suckled some more on her candy.

Kakashi looked torn. A visible gulp bobbed beneath his mask. "I'll think about it," he said evasively, in a voice that was a touch higher than usual.

"Kakashi," she said softly, fixing him with a serious look. "Please don't _not_ come because of me. You're Sasuke's teacher… it'll mean a lot to him if you go. I know he doesn't show it, but he really cares what you think of him."

He sighed, looking away. After a moment's thought, he nodded. "Ok… I'll come."

She hadn't lied. Sasuke really did hold Kakashi in a certain esteem no one else alive was honored with. The little fact that this didn't dampen his homicidal feelings towards Kakashi after learning of what had transpired between him and Sakura, was a mere quibble. With enough alcohol, everyone would be friends again and in a couple of days when Sakura had Kakashi exactly where she wanted him, they would all learn to accept. And if they didn't _want_ to accept it, Sakura's fists could be awfully persuasive.

"Good!" she said, smiling. "We'll see you there then."

* * *

When Sakura got home, the first thing she did was remove that ghastly uniform and fling it on the floor. She was halfway to her closet when the phone rang. 

It was her mother.

"Sakura," she said, before Sakura could even manage a "Hello", "I'm very concerned about the things I've been hearing. Ino's mother told me something very interesting this morning."

_Oh no…_

This was far too soon! The wedding date hadn't even been set and her mother had already caught wind!

"Yes, mom?" Sakura asked, aiming for an innocent, non-the-wiser kind of tone. Her face was screwed up and she was chewing her lip, but at least her voice wasn't incriminating.

"Is it true?" Her mother asked in a hushed tone. "Are you… are you actually dating Kakashi-sensei?"

Sakura winced. "Just call him Kakashi, mom."

"Oh, heaven's, it's true."

"Mom…"

"I can't tell you how relieved I am."

"…mom?"

"I was a little concerned when you told me you wanted one of the most masculine jobs available. And you're always hanging around with boys rather than girls and then you started weight-lifting – do you remember? After that Sasuke boy, you never seemed interested in getting a boyfriend, so I was naturally beginning to presume that you were-"

"Mom! For the last time! I'm not gay!"

"I wouldn't mind if you were, sweetie, I was just _really_ hoping for some grandchildren eventually. Now that hope has been restored! I always knew you'd probably go for someone older. You've always gravitated towards maturity, Sakura, even when you were a little girl. You're more like your grandmother than you realize, you know? Your grandfather was twenty years her senior when they married."

Sakura sank onto her bed with a soft sigh. "I know…" She didn't know whether to be relieved about her mother's reaction or exasperated. Seriously, she was only seventeen. Surely it wasn't too much of a worry that she hadn't had any boyfriends yet?

"Sakura, sweetie… we did give you 'the talk', didn't we?"

Exasperated. _Definitely _exasperated.

* * *

The bar was crowded when Sakura arrived. She hadn't meant to be so late, but her mother had managed to wrangle out their conversation for over an hour. Sakura would have hung up, but hanging up on that woman was like swatting a dragon in the face with a spatula; there would be a temporary moment of silence and then hell itself would break loose and Sakura would be subjected to the '_is-that-how-you-show-respect-to-the-woman-who-endured-thirty-hours-of-labour-pain-to-give-you-life'_ lecture. And, being that she was related to Sakura, it would be venomous. 

But even though Sakura was over half an hour late, she still arrived before Kakashi. She looked about for him nonchalantly as she congratulated Sasuke, coaxed him into a hug and bought the next round of drinks. She settled in a booth with team Gai and a cherry flavored alcopop, and despite being perfectly attentive to the conversation, she couldn't stop her eyes roaming the room in search for Kakashi.

He was probably just late but it wouldn't have surprised her if he'd had second thoughts about putting himself in a situation where contact between the two of them was likely. Or maybe he'd remembered that Sasuke and Naruto were longing to strangle him with his own entrails and had thought better of coming? But he needn't have worried. Sakura had warned the two boys quite sharply on her arrival that they were to behave themselves towards Kakashi should he show up. They'd agreed reluctantly, though some of the animosity towards their former teacher was alleviated when they saw that she was in a far better mood than yesterday.

"Hey, Sakura," TenTen said, diverting her attention from the bar's entrance. "So what's this thing about you and Kakashi-sensei?"

"What thing?" she asked, curious to know what it was people thought was going on.

"I heard he was hitting on you," Lee said.

"Nah, you're sleeping with him, aren't you?" TenTen prompted.

"I don't care," Neji sighed, nursing his drink.

TenTen ignored him. "So what's going on?"

"Something did happen," Sakura answered truthfully. "But we decided it's best if we remain friends."

"Ah!" TenTen's face fell. "Why?"

Sakura stared at her. "He doesn't think it's right to be dating a former student."

"So?" TenTen wasn't at all put off.

"Does he not understand the beauty and vitality of love and youth?" Lee asked.

Sakura shrugged. "Apparently not," she said slowly. "But don't you find it weird? I mean, he is quite a bit older…"

"A little…" TenTen admitted. "But he's cute, so why not?"

"_Cute_?" Sakura threw her a stupefied look. "How do you know? You've not seen his face, have you?"

"No – I meant, he seems sort of sweet," the other girl said quickly, as if momentarily in fear for her life. "Why? Have you seen his face? Ooh – go on! What does he look like?"

Sakura sighed dreamily. "Like… an underwear model."

TenTen echoed her sigh.

"I didn't need to know that," Neji muttered.

"Can I have him, Sakura-chan?" TenTen asked her. "_Please?_ He's right over there – maybe if I buy him a drink or two…?"

Sakura whipped around in her seat and caught sight of the man she'd been looking for all evening. He was standing near the bar, talking to Sasuke who was looking typically sullen but alert, and as was usually the case when she laid eyes on Kakashi, a familiar warmth tightened around her heart. Only the sight of Kakashi triggered this response in her, and she hoped the excitement at simply _seeing_ him would never wear off.

"Excuse me," she said to the rest of her table as she stood up. Kakashi was giving Sasuke a thumbs up and was turning towards the bar, about to order a drink. Sakura arrived at his side just in time to hear him ask the bartender for a, "Shochu and water."

"I didn't think you'd show up," she said happily.

He glanced at her briefly. "I won't be here long. I have reports to fill out."

She nodded, glancing distractedly over her shoulder at where Naruto and Sasuke were giving her very misgiving looks. She stuck her tongue out at them, earning a gasp from Naruto, and turned back to Kakashi. "Want to buy me a drink?"

"Not really," he answered swiftly.

"What kind of friend are you?" she asked, pouting at him. "I already bought my round so I don't have any money left."

Kakashi looked torn. "What do you want?"

"Cherry Breezer."

"Girly drink," he noted.

"Girly girl," she explained.

With a heavy sigh, Kakashi took a seat and rubbed a hand over his masked face. Sakura glanced over him, wondering if it was her presence that had brought this weariness over him. But that wasn't the plan. As much as her plan was to wear him down, it was all about _building him up_. She had to give him confidence, inspire a trust and make him see that it wouldn't be _that_ bad being with her. If all he felt around her was exasperation and misery, her plan wouldn't work.

At this rate it might take a little longer than three days…

Three _years_ sounded about right though.

When her drink arrived, Sakura sat down beside him and began sucking on the straw thoughtfully. "How did you get that scar?" she asked.

He blinked at her. "What scar?"

"This one," she said, and poked his side, earning a similar squirm to the one she'd witnessed at the hospital. "Looks like a surgical scar."

"It is," he said, putting a protective hand over his tender side. "My kidney was stolen."

"_Eh?!_" Her mouth fell open and she stared at him in horror. Then she realized he was about to take a sip of his _very _alcoholic drink and drove forward to stop him. "What are you doing? You only have one kidney and you're still recovering from a nasty injury! You're not drinking-"

"I got it back," he said, as if it was nothing more than a mislaid shoe. "I tracked the bastards down and brought it home in a lunchbox. Everything's where it should be, and all I have is a scar now. Can I have my drink back now, Doctor Haruno?"

She paused for a moment, considering his story, and then relented. Kakashi took a dignified sip through his mask before setting his glass down, probably perfectly aware that Sakura was staring obtusely at him. His only reaction was to start picking at the label on his Shochu bottle.

"You never talk about those kinds of things," she said eventually.

"What things?" he said dully.

"Everyone has stories. Little stupid stories and anecdotes about weird things that have happened to them. I bet you have loads, but you never tell them." She leant back on her stool, balancing it on two legs. "If we're going to be friends, you're going to have to entertain me."

"Are you _five?_" he asked rhetorically.

"I may have to start crying if you don't," she warned.

"Well, I wouldn't want that," he said seriously. "There are kids around. They'd have nightmares."

"Like you ever cared about giving kids nightmares," she accused. "You used to throw kunai at us in our sleep."

"Training." He shrugged. "Half the time you didn't even wake up."

"Yeah, I remember," she said grimly. "Then you would resort to pouring water into our sleeping bags. You said it was character building at the time."

"It worked didn't it? You have a character."

She snorted. "Unlike some people."

"Are you suggesting I don't have a character?" he asked, visible eyebrow raised.

"Sure, you do," she said, nodding. "It's just a little warped."

A soft laugh escaped him, and although it was brief and a little caustic, it gave her hope. He'd only finished a third of his drink – there was still time to bring him around.

"So… how did you get your other scar?" she asked slowly. "The one on your face?"

Kakashi turned an expectant look on her. "I'm sure you have some theories."

Oh, she had _millions!_ "I used to think you were a distant relative of the Uchiha or something – or like a pale version of a black sheep," she admitted. "But I've seen your medical records so I know that the sharingan is a transplant. So I guess the question is… how did you lose your eye and how exactly did you get an Uchiha to donate their most prized weapon?"

"You're right. That is the question." But he didn't elaborate beyond that.

Sakura chewed her lip. "You know… that time when you said it wasn't wise to run with scissors… that wasn't really-"

"No," he said shortly. "I lost it in a fight during the war. My best friend was an Uchiha. It's his eye."

"Oh…" Sakura didn't need to know more than that. She knew that a donation like that wouldn't have been given by a healthy individual. Giving up one eye so someone could have two didn't make sense. The only time you harvested vital organs from someone was when they were dead or dying.

Which would explain why Sakura had never heard of this Uchiha friend before.

"What was he like?" she asked quietly, biting down on the end of her straw.

She heard rather than saw his sudden smile. "Like a complete dork," he chimed, taking another sip of his drink. "He was always getting into trouble and doing the wrong thing. The whole reason I lost this eye in the first place is because of his ineptitude. But… he paid me back two-fold… and then some."

Sakura smiled. "He doesn't sound like any Uchiha I know."

"Mm," Kakashi hummed. "His moral integrity was above the average for that family, it has to be said."

"What was his name?"

Kakashi waited a long time before answering, as if hesitant to confess it. "Obito." He said as if he had said it often.

"Obito…" She tasted the name on her tongue thoughtfully. "I would have liked to have known him."

Shaking his head, Kakashi gave her an amused look. "You would have strangled him had you known him. Seriously. He was pretty infuriating most of the time."

"I doubt anyone can be worse than Naruto."

"Well, there was this one time during one of our first missions together…"

And in that moment, he opened up to her. Kakashi didn't seem to notice, and neither did Sakura at first – she was too caught up in his story wherein Obito, aged nine, had henge-no-justu'd himself to look like Kakashi in order to hit on their other teammate – a girl named Rin. "She fell for it completely, of course," he explained. "So then I was stuck with a girl fawning all over me _and _grief off all the people Obito had deliberately pissed off while he was wearing my face – including sensei. But I got my own back when I threw him off the Hokage monument."

Sakura gasped. "I thought he was your best friend!"

"In the Naruto-Sasuke sense."

"Oh… I see. Bitter rivalry with homoerotic undertones?"

"…or… something like that." Kakashi cleared his throat. "We didn't get on particularly well in those days. I did a lot of nasty things to him and he did a lot of nasty stuff in return. But deep down we always cared about one another, even though neither of us bothered to acknowledge that until it was almost too late. But then, that's how it goes, you know?"

She _sort_ of understood. Naruto and Sasuke were capable of terrible cruelty towards each other, but it was only because their bond was so fierce and strong. Personally she didn't get the concept of hurting the people you loved.

It must have been a stupid boy thing.

Sakura looked around to spot Naruto and Sasuke sitting at a table behind them. Both were looking especially drunk, and Naruto seemed to be rattling off words in an attempt to find one that would make Sasuke laugh. So far 'Bumblebee' had produced a slight smirk. Neither seemed interested in keeping an eye on her and Kakashi anymore.

When she turned back to Kakashi, his mask was bunched around his neck and he was taking a larger swig of his drink, evidently confident that with his back turned to the room, no one could see him. As he swallowed, Sakura caught the briefest glimpse of a familiar dimple in his cheek. Unable to stop herself, she grinned.

"What?" he asked, noticing her cat-like smile.

"I've not seen your dimples in ages," she told him. "I was beginning to miss them."

"I have dimples?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at her. It was likely he was just pulling her leg though.

"Yep. Two of them. Hiding beneath your mask with your mole."

"It's a beauty spot."

"I think it could be a wart."

"A mole. It's a mole."

"Did you know you have dimples?"

"I suspected occasionally when I shaved."

"Yep," she said, placing a finger against two points on either of his cheeks. "One here, and one here."

He stared down at her with his unreadable dark eye. "I didn't think they were that noticeable."

"They show the most when you smile. And not a fake smile, either. I mean a real smile, when you're happy."

As she spoke, the corner of his lips quirked up and, true to her words, the dimples dipped beneath her fingertips. Her own smile widened in response. "See?" she said.

His gaze lingered over hers, and gradually the smile left his face. For a moment Sakura wondered if she'd gone too far, when he lifted his hand and gently placed it over hers, pulling it away from his face. But he wasn't trying to distance himself from her. Instead he just held her hand in his larger, warmer one while he searched her face, as if looking for some sign of deception.

The rough pad of his thumb brushed against the back of her knuckles, and then he was leaning towards her. He stopped short with his lips only mere centimeters from hers; so close that she could smell the faint aroma of Shochu on his breath, mingling with the rest of that heavenly masculine smell that was Kakashi. Just the closeness alone made her insides clench with longing as her eyes slid shut. She didn't care who saw or what they thought, because there was nothing more in the world she wanted right at that moment than a kiss off this man. The noises of the bar were growing faraway and distant, as if time itself was slowing down.

The distance was closed and his lips touched against hers. Sakura's eyes flew open and she hastily leant back, at a perfect angle to witness the surprise and confusion that clouded over Kakashi's face. The bar that had seemed momentarily mute returned to full volume, and time picked up its former pace. All she could offer him was a slightly apologetic smile and a helpless shrug. "You can't have it both ways, Kakashi," she told him faintly.

He drew back, glancing around the room self-consciously as he reapplied the mask over his face. It seemed he'd forgotten his staunch vow of platonic friendship for a moment there, and that was all Sakura needed for today.

Downing the rest of her drink, she sighed. "I'm back on the mission roster tomorrow, so I should probably turn in early," she said, making a show of looking at the nonexistent watch on her wrist. "I'll see you tomorrow, ok?"

To rub it in, she bounced forward and planted a loud, friendly peck on his masked cheek before slipping to her feet. "G'night, Kakashi."

She walked towards the exist, passing two _extremely_ inebriated former teammates – one who was attempting to smother sniggers while the other repeatedly cried "Knobbles!". She didn't let her carefree façade drop until she had made it outside into the cool evening air.

In truth… drawing away from that kiss had probably hurt her more than it had hurt Kakashi…

Giving her head the faintest of shakes, she headed home, tired and worried, but confident at the same time. She'd gotten to know more about Kakashi in the last five minutes than she had in the last five years. Granted, he'd simply told her about his former team… but it was more than he usually gave anyone, and for that she knew she was special, at least to him. And Kakashi wasn't nearly as much of a 'wasteland' as he thought.

When she arrived home she put away her shoes and headed straight to the bathroom, eager to step under the spray of her shower and wash away the day's aches. She shrugged her clothes into a disheveled heap outside the door, switched on the water heater and selected a slightly cooler temperature than the one she'd used last night for her bath. The moment Kakashi had left her apartment she'd treated herself to a nice long soak to soothe away the aches and strains that had been building up. But today the pain in her muscles and the soreness between her legs had diminished and she was only in the mood for a quick shower, so as soon as the heater ignited, she hooked the showerhead on the highest peg on the wall and turned it on.

As she stood there frisking the rough sponge over her skin and watching the soapy water slide over the sloping floor into the drains, she privately began to plan the next step. Kakashi instigating a kiss without prompting was unexpected, but not unwelcome, and things were certainly moving in the direction she wanted them to. Had she been right to pull away? He'd clammed up rather quickly, but then that was just Kakashi's way. She wasn't going to allow him to keep her at arm's length and steal a kiss whenever he felt like it. He couldn't lay down the rules and then change them on her, even if she was _really _lamenting that missed kiss…

Although, perhaps in a few days after a little more gentle coaxing her would –

Sakura stiffened. A cold draft of air washed over her back and legs as the warm air and steam began to dissipate. There was someone standing in the doorway behind her, letting the heat escape. But Sakura didn't panic. She was so acclimatized to his presence that she recognized him solely by the warm thrill that began to burn deep in her belly.

Pressing her arms over her breasts, she awkwardly half-turned towards the door, not entirely sure if she had the confidence to be as nonchalant as she wished. He had never seen her completely naked, and to be honest, Sakura had hoped that when the time came to undress in front of him, the lights would at least be turned off. But here in this bright, cramped bathroom, her whole body was illuminated for his scrutiny. He could probably see the old burn on her hip that she'd gotten from a stray Katon jutsu, as well as the brown birthmark that stained the skin at the bottom of her ribs, not to mention every flaw in her size and shape. Every blemish and imperfection would be marked out for him to notice.

Water was running into her eyes, obscuring her vision, and she haphazardly tried to push her wet hair out of her face as she simultaneously tried to shield her breasts. But he wasn't looking at her body. His gaze was only on her face, silently regarding her as if it wasn't all that strange to walk up to people while they were in the middle of their shower.

"You're letting all the cold in," she said, for lack of anything more profound to say.

He nodded slowly, took one step forward and reached behind him to slide the door shut. That hadn't been _quite_ what Sakura had been asking, but at least the draft had stopped, even though she was left shivering slightly in the chilled aftermath.

With as much dignity as someone could muster when they were cold, wet and naked with an audience, she lifted her chin. "Could you pass me a towel, please?" she asked, nodding to the shelf beside him. And while he was occupied with fetching down a pale pink towel from the pile there, Sakura hastily stretched to turn the water off, as well as the heater with a snap. When she turned back to Kakashi, the towel was in his hand, but he was making no move to give it to her.

He was such an awkward man…

Like a dark blot in her pristine white bathroom, he stood out like a sore thumb, soaking up the light and warmth. He seemed out of place, but perfectly at home at the same time. Sakura knew she would have to turn toward him fully and approach if she ever wanted that towel.

Not wanting to appear self-conscious, she threw her apprehension to the wind and turned swiftly to move forward. She reached out to take the towel, but before her fingers could connect, he snapped it open and drew it around her shoulders so quickly she was tugged against his front before she knew what he'd done. The moisture from her naked front soaked into his clothes but he didn't seem to notice or care. Sakura stiffened in shock, not entirely what to make of this action from a man who had to literally be _forced_ into taking any kind of sexual initiative.

It wasn't that she didn't like it. What wasn't to like about being pressed up against the warm, hard body of a god incarnate? His hands were still firmly grasping the towel, keeping her pinned and unable to escape, but she wouldn't have moved away even if he'd told her to. Pressed this close, all she really wanted to do was lean closer and rub her nose against his clothes and breathe in that wonderful, male smell that she would never in her lifetime grow tired of. It was embarrassing, confusing and exhilarating all at once. She'd never been this completely naked in front of a man before, and feeling all the rough and course edges of his clothes against her soft, damp skin was certainly an arousing experience.

Tentatively she lifted her head to meet his gaze. "I'm pretty sure friends aren't supposed to interrupt other friends when they're in the middle of a shower," she pointed out to him dryly.

He shook his head ever so slightly, scrutinizing her face. "You and I can never be friends." His voice was low and distant, as if he wasn't all there.

Sakura wrinkled her nose at his words. "Yes we can," she said simply.

"No, we can't," he whispered more firmly.

"Yes, _we can_." It didn't take as much courage as she thought it would, to reach up and gently trace her wet fingertips over his mask and pull it down. Knowing how he felt about her, it was almost as if it was her personal right to be able to stand up on her tiptoes and press a warm, moist kiss to his lips. "We can still be friends," she whispered as she pressed light little kisses around his chin and jaw. "We just have to do things like this more often." She kissed his mole – which really _was _just a tiny beauty mark, despite her teasing – and then moved to the tip of his nose. "I can still be your friend… because I think that's what you want most. A friend. But I can be that and more, if you'd just let me…"

He sighed, his eye sliding shut as his forehead dropped forward to meet hers. "How do you do that?" he asked, punctuating the soft question with an equally soft kiss against the corner of her mouth. It traveled lower, along her jaw until he was kissing the spot beneath her ear, licking and sucking at her skin as if it was delicious.

Sakura's eyes nearly crossed as a strong quiver of pleasure worked its way up her spine. "How do I do what?" she asked absently, hoping he would just keep kissing her neck like that. The towel was slipping, and in moments it would be on the floor, but Sakura couldn't summon the embarrassment to care anymore.

"How do you open your mouth and say what you mean?" The murmur of his voice in her ear was more intoxicating than ten pints of sake. "When I see you I can never think of anything to say or do… and then you open your mouth and you make it look so easy."

"I babble," she whispered, blushing faintly. "You make me nervous when you don't say anything."

"I like your babbling," he said. "It's cute."

"So's your wart."

"Hey…" His voice held a distinct pout. Sakura giggled and lifted her arms around his neck to press more fully against him, stretching in what amounted to nothing more than sheer feline pleasure. The towel fell away completely to pool on the wet floor, but Sakura only noticed when she felt Kakashi's hands slide of the slick skin of her rear. She was half torn over whether to lean away from the touch in embarrassment, or push herself against his hands to encourage the delicious feelings he evoked. It wasn't like he hadn't touched her before – but the last time she had mostly been clothed and the room had been pretty dark.

"You're so beautiful…" he murmured, kissing the moisture off her shoulder.

Charmed into another blush, Sakura sighed contentedly. "Does this mean you're willing to be more than friends with me?"

"I don't know what else to do about you." He lifted his head and sealed his mouth against hers in a searing kiss that made her toes curl. It was an overwhelming heat – a torrent moving towards her that she wanted nothing more than to throw herself into. She knew where it would lead to if neither of them had the mind to stop things, and at the back of her mind it bothered her. But she would cross that bridge when it came, and for now she allowed herself to be swept along in the lazy passion of this deep kiss.

"This probably isn't a good idea," she heard him mutter against her lips, almost unintelligibly.

"Probably," she agreed, sweeping a hand through his hair to gain purchase and a better angle. She never wanted the kiss to end. It was different from all the others. _Better_. There was no hesitation or guilt holding him back. No anger. He'd never kissed her before simply to enjoy her; to dominate her, apologise to her, and comfort her, yes, but never to indulge himself.

Although perhaps, by his own admission, their first kiss had been purely at his own indulgence, unbeknownst to her…

"We could end up regretting it," he said, nipping at her lower lip.

"We could," she murmured, letting her head fall back to allow him access to her sensitive throat. To be honest she wasn't really listening to him. All that mattered was that he was there with her, doing such wonderful things to her that she couldn't believe she'd waited this long to discover them.

Then his roaming hands on her backside slipped between her legs, passing close enough to her sex to make her freeze. She hadn't meant to flinch – the contact simply caught her by surprise and the instinctive panic of being touched in such a place surged inside her before she could control it. Suddenly his strong embrace was trapping her and she didn't feel in control anymore. She struggled, attempting to push him away…

He released her instantly, knowing something was wrong. "What is it?" But she could tell from the look on his face that he already suspected.

Guilt and anger gnawed her at her insides. The moment he had let her go, she bitterly lamented her own reaction. It wasn't Kakashi's fault that she hated being touched there… it just reminded her too much of the way Matsura had held her pinned and she'd been unable to move away and it had _hurt_…

"I'm sorry," she said quickly, knowing she'd broken the mood. "It's not you, it's just-"

"It doesn't matter," he said gruffly. For a moment she thought she'd ruined everything, that he would suddenly realize what a huge mistake he was making and turn to leave.

But instead he took her gently by the arms and guided her back to him, before slowly lowering his mouth over hers again. The kiss was slower this time, more patient and tender. "I won't hurt you," he said, his fingers curling through her wet locks. "Not ever. I promise."

She almost felt like rolling her eyes. Well, she _knew _that obviously! Kakashi would never intentionally hurt anyone – be they a lover or a random passing butterfly. Although three hundred and fifty-four of the man's deceased assassination targets might beg to differ about that…

"Besides," he amended, "I'll make you learn to like everything I do to you."

His lips had dipped to her collar, so he probably missed the hot flush that spread over her cheeks. It honestly sounded like he intended to make this a regular thing…

Sakura's train of thought promptly derailed as his mouth fastened over a nipple. The sharp pleasure surged all the way to the pit of her stomach, making her grimace and moan as her knees instantly went weak and began to buckle. It was almost is if he knew the way the pleasure moved through her, as he sank to his knees before her and let his lips travel down over her ribs to her stomach. Sakura just couldn't believe how he managed to arouse her no matter what he kissed. Her stomach had to be the least sensitive spot on her body, but when his tongue dipped into her bellybutton her hands flew to grip his hair as another sharp pang of arousal blew through her – lancing straight between her legs.

And his lips traveled lower still, so low that he brushed the thatch of pink curls that-

"Kakashi!"

Far too late she realized what he was about to do. Color rose hot in her face and she immediately tried to both push his head away and step back. But it seemed he'd anticipated this move because his hand caught the back of her knees and tripped her. Sakura landed on the cold wet floor ass-first with her hands out to steady herself, yet her eyes remained locked on Kakashi, almost fearful about the uncompromising glint in his dark eye.

He caught her hips and slid her towards him. She tried to scramble away, but the slippery floor only worked against her. She tried to close her legs, but Kakashi parted them easily enough and held them apart to allow himself between them.

"Wait!" she begged, hugely uncomfortable with being so exposed to his gaze. "This is weird!"

"You won't be saying that in a minute." And without further ado, he bent his head and sealed his mouth against her.

Sakura's heart nearly stopped from the shock. The sudden lash of pleasure was almost unbearable, and her body snapped rigid with tension, as if it couldn't decide whether to push closer or pull away. Helpless little sounds escaped her mouth and her hands tugged at his hair so hard it was a wonder he didn't complain. It was too much. His tongue swirled and stroked and stabbed without mercy, making her legs quiver and tremble. She was aware of the dry sobs that broke from her throat, as well as her futile pleas for him to stop the torture. Her hips shifted restlessly, but he didn't hold them down. Instead he slid his hands beneath them to lift her up for better access.

"I'll kill you for this," she choked out brokenly as the razor-sharp pleasure cut her to pieces. She could no longer see. She could barely hear over the pounding of her own heart. The one hand that wasn't shifting restlessly through his rumpled gray locks was slapping around in the puddles around her, probably looking for something with which to beat him over the head.

It was when she felt him push one large, hard finger into her that she went completely to pieces. Her inner muscles convulsed around the invading digit and the coil of pleasure that had been tightening under his onslaught abruptly snapped.

He held her surging body down with his arm as her own uncontrolled cries and gasps filled the small bathroom. His mouth remained against her, riding the tidal waves of sensation and prolonging them, until they gradually calmed into gently swirling eddies. Still, the occasional throb of pleasure made her whole body spasm in the aftermath.

Sakura could barely move. Kakashi sat up, his hair almost comically askew with his hitai-ate now protecting his ear. He had the cheek to lick his lips and dab them with the back of his hand, as if he'd just enjoyed his favorite dish.

"What was that about killing me?" he asked.

Maybe later… when she could walk again…

"Why did you do that?" she panted, her heart still hammering a fast rhythm beneath her ribs.

His dark eye surveyed her. "You liked it didn't you?"

She blushed. "Well, yes… but…"

"You should see how beautiful you look right now."

"Oh, jeez…" She bit her lip to stifle a self-conscious laugh.

She'd known vaguely about this kind of sexual act, but she'd decided a long time ago that it wasn't for her. When she could barely stand the embarrassment of him _looking_ at her down there, it seemed incomprehensible to allow any man to put his mouth there.

But now in the aftermath of one of the most ferocious orgasms of her life, she couldn't gather the energy to worry over her modesty. Her shyness was replaced with a sense of comfortable familiarity. Her legs were still open to him, and his hands were still running possessively over her thighs which were beginning to dry. There was a sense of utter complacency that she could easily get used to.

"I did it because I wanted you as wet as possible," he explained finally.

"But why?" she asked, a little naively. But it was hard for her to imagine how you could possibly be any wetter when you'd just stepped out of the shower.

He held out a hand for her to take and pulled her upright into a sitting position. Rather than release her though, he guided her hand towards his lap and placed it directly against the hard bulge in his pants. Sakura's lethargy seemed to evaporate instantly as curiosity overtook. She watched Kakashi's face for a reaction as her fingers curled instinctively around the hot object in her hand, taking in its size and shape and the way Kakashi's breath caught when she squeezed.

To think he'd already been inside her once… she wasn't entirely sure how he'd managed to fit. It seem anatomically impossible. And even though common sense told her that it would only hurt if they tried again, her treacherous body seemed to have already forgotten the pain and the pit of her belly twisted in eager anticipation.

She had to be insane…

Immediately her fingers went to unbutton his pants in order to feel more of him, but Kakashi's hand closed over her wrist. "Not in here," he said shortly.

She stared up at him, some long dormant sex drive devolving her into a mono-syllabic cavewoman. "Bed," she said. "Bed _now_."

He nodded and helped her up. Although she was slightly wobbly on her feet, nothing would stop her from making it back into the bedroom. The bed wasn't big – it was only a single, and the duvet was still rumpled from when she'd slept in it last night. Kakashi pulled her up short of the footboard and into a kiss. She responded with equal fervor as she began tugging at the zipper of his flak jacket. If they were going to do this he was going to have to be _completely _naked. It was only fair.

It took far too long, in Sakura's opinion, to rid him of his jacket, gloves, shirt and vest. And then there were his sandals and pants to contend with. Sakura didn't quite have the courage to remove his underwear, so he did that bit, and for a long moment Sakura could only stand and stare.

_Definitely_ very large.

But then, she'd only ever seen one other man in a state of arousal, and frankly a hamster would look well-endowed compared to Matsura. Especially after she was through with him.

Still, some of the nervousness must have translated onto her face, because he touched her shoulder compassionately. "We don't have to."

But he really wanted to, judging by his rather obvious state of arousal. And she couldn't deny she wasn't in the same boat. And if not now then when? If it was ever going to work between them, they had to sort this mess out.

Timidly, she reached out to touch him. She'd never seen or felt this much of him before, and she was compelled to discover him properly. She was surprised at how soft he felt to the touch, and yet unbelievably hard at the same time. He was thick too, and she only just managed to fit her fingers around him. As she squeezed experimentally again, Kakashi groaned and reached for her shoulder. He seemed so sensitive to even the lightest touch on his length. Sakura couldn't help but wonder what kind of sounds he would make if she were to lick it…

"Can I taste you?" she asked, looking up at him politely.

Kakashi sucked in a sharp breath. "Um…" he hedged. "Maybe next time. And this won't last long if you keep asking things like that."

"Like what?" She pouted, finding it deeply unfair that he was allowed to taste her, but she wasn't allowed to return the favor.

"Like you're Konoha's number one most repressed nymphomaniac."

"Oh…" She didn't know quite what to say to that, so instead she just reached up to pull him down into another kiss. Her confidence was growing. Every time she touched him it seemed to become more natural. When his arms wrapped around her to drag her closer, she could only sigh in pleasure, even though the scalding hardness grinding against her stomach was somewhat alarming. Once again she felt the thrill of panic at the thought of him penetrating her, but it was overridden by the warm pleasure of his kiss and the knowledge that this was the man who loved her. The only man who had ever loved her.

He lifted her up, making her squeak and instinctively wrap her legs around his waist. Their kiss didn't even break as he took her down onto the bed and pressed her into the mattress, their legs tangling in the heaped duvet at their feet. Sakura closed her eyes and let the euphoric sensations wash over her. With just a small shift of his hips, his length ground against her core, eliciting a soft gasp that made her arch. Above her, she felt Kakashi hesitate and slid open her eyes to regard him cautiously.

"Are you sure about this?" she asked, concerned for him. "If you're not ready, I understand. We don't have to do anything you're not comfortable-"

"You're taking the mickey, aren't you?"

"Well, yes…"

He grinned at her and she returned it with a shy smile. Then ever so suddenly he'd rolled them both over so that she was the one on top. Her face wiped clean of all expression as she pondered this new position and his intention behind it. "This way?" she whispered.

"I can't be bothered doing all the work," he said, shrugging.

"You're so lazy, Kakashi," she teased, even though could take a good guess about why he wanted it this way.

On top, she could control their pace and speed. The loss of control that scared her so much might not be so bad if she was the one calling the shots.

Or, he really was just the laziest bastard in Konoha. There was certainly a lot of other evidence to support this conclusion.

Nevertheless, his consideration charmed her, and she graced him with a soft kiss on the lips. "I love you," she told him.

"Mm." His eyes slid shut and he was unable to formulate a response, what with her hips beginning to grind at his.

"Do you love me?" she asked coyly.

Kakashi splayed his hands over her thighs and arched his pelvis up towards her. "You know I do," he muttered thickly.

"And this is what you want?" she pressed on, her own breathing getting a little heavier as the exquisite friction between her legs increased.

A little groan broke from Kakashi's throat. "Very much so, yes."

"And everything that comes with it?" She loved witnessing the fever that she could bring out in him with only her body. She loved the way his chest moved rapidly and his large hands squeezed her hips while he was subject to her every whim. But as much as she wanted to take him inside her and see the same complete abandon she'd seen in that dark little hotel room… she had to know that he understood what this meant. If he turned around later and referred to this wonderful moment as another lapse in reason, it would break her heart. Again.

When he didn't answer her question, she stopped her movements and waited for him to meet her gaze. "What is it you want from me, Kakashi?" she asked. "What did you come here for?"

"How is it you can keep talking in a situation like this?" he wondered, clearly bewildered. "I can barely string a thought together."

"Kakashi!" she snapped sharply. "What do you want from me! Because if you're only here to get your rocks off, you can shove off back where you came from-"

"You're adorable when you're angry," he interrupted. "But before you start hitting me, I should tell you I only came here for one thing."

Sakura's jaw tensed, and she wondered if now was a good time to perpetuate her title as _Deballer of Men_. "And what would that be?" she asked tersely.

He gave the mildest shake of the head. "Everything."

She stared at him for a beat. "That's more than one thing," she pointed out, confused.

"Yes, but I was trying to sound profound," he sighed.

"What do you mean 'everything'?" she murmured, frowning at him.

He looked torn for a moment. "Do we have to discuss this now, only I think my balls are going to turn blue in a minute-"

"I don't care. Explain now."

He nearly laughed. "I _can't_ explain it. I don't understand it. Only, every time you sit down next to me, I feel happier. And the happier I feel, the guiltier I get too. And I don't want to feel guilty anymore. And it's probably a very bad idea to do this, and you may come to your sesnse and fall in love with someone else tomorrow, or wind up hating me for stealing this part of your life that is usually dedicated to alcohol and boys, but I don't know what else to do because sitting alone when I know I could be here with you is agony."

"Oh," she murmured, her heart throbbing as you leant forward to cradle his face and kiss his nose, the way she might do to an injured puppy. "Do you trust me then?"

"You terrify me," he said quietly. "But yes. I think I do."

A soft smile played on her lips as she straightened up and deliberately rolled her hips against his once more, enjoying the radiating pleasure from their point of contact almost as much as the way he gasped. "Good. Then we're equal."

He caught her hips, urging her to keep moving them in that slow, grinding pattern. "Not everyone will accept us," he pointed out.

Damn that voice of reason. "It's none of their business."

"Naruto and Sasuke might actually kill me."

"I'll make sure they put something nice on your gravestone."

"And you'll probably get sick of me eventually. They all do."

"If you don't get sick of me first."

Kakashi's back arched and his eyes squeezed shut. "_Sakura_…" He'd never actually beg, but he was coming damn close to it. The erection pressing insistently between her legs was hard to ignore, and if she didn't do something about it soon she would probably find herself forfeiting her top position to a desperate Copy Ninja.

Still… she was nervous.

Without a word she lifted herself up and took his length in hand to guide the thick, blunt tip to her entrance. It certainly felt good now, and her blood may have been pumping as hard as his, but she knew perfectly well that in a moment it would probably all change. Her body just didn't agree… but in a way, that was probably a good thing. She would never have had the courage to sink down against him if her body hadn't been caught up in the misguided promise of pleasure.

She took it slow, but it still stung – although not as much as she remembered. Perhaps because she had already endured it once, she knew what to expect and so the fear that had contributed so much to her distress the first time around was absent. Sakura was in control now. The sting of stretched flesh seemed bearable, even though some of the soreness from their original encounter still lingered.

Inch by inch she took him, chewing on her lip the whole time, until eventually she was fully seated against him, having taken him as far as she could. Pained muscles fluttered around his intruding length, and she had the satisfaction of watching his mouth drop open in a soft moan as he clawed his fingers against her twisted sheets in an attempt to control himself.

"Give me a minute," she said, wincing in discomfort.

"Take two," he offered, looking only too eager for the opportunity to rally his stamina.

Sakura forced herself to relax, taking deep, controlled breaths. Pleasure and pain warred within her, fighting for dominance. It didn't seem fair that she had to suffer this, after reading so many of her mother's romances which usually portrayed sex as mind-blowing pleasure from start to finish. No one had ever told her that pain went beyond that very first penetration. No one had ever said she would spend more time attempting to adjust to his size than enjoying the actual act.

"One day," she murmured, feeling the pain recede enough to roll her hips a little. "One day we'll be able to do this perfectly. We'll be so in tune with one another that you'll be able to take me anywhere any time you like."

"I told you," he said roughly, "this won't last long if you keep saying things like that."

"No, it'll last," she said, though she wasn't referring to their current situation. "I'm sure it will."

Experimentally, she lifted herself up a fraction in order to sink back down, pleased that there was relatively no pain in the action. She tried it again with growing confidence, and nearly hummed in the deep pleasure the slow motion gave her. Looking down at Kakashi, she sought his approval. "Am I doing it right?"

"I don't think there's a wrong way to do it," he said, grimacing in pleasure. "Do what you want, just don't stop."

But his hands moved onto her hips to help guide her, urging her to rock forward and back every time she came down against him. She kept it slow, and he didn't hurry her. She moved gingerly at first, wary of the discomfort that danced around the edges of pleasure, but gradually as she relaxed, she was able to move more confidently. While her fingers flutter over his torso and stomach, delighting in the faint dusting of coarse hairs, she was aware that more than just her own will was driving her movement. It was becoming natural to move this way, to feel him moving inside he, pushing her towards something. Her gaze locked with his, watching each other as she rocked over him, communicating nothing and everything. All that could be heard in her small, cramped apartment was the sound of their breathing, harsh, and growing more erratic with each passing minute.

A little faster…

Sakura began to pant, excitement and pleasure beginning to build in her, the pain all but forgotten.

Faster, until she could no longer focus her eyes on his, and her fingers were beginning to slip on the sheen of sweat covering his skin. Kakashi bit back a moan, a look of deep concentration on his face. Waves of pleasure lapped at her, seeming to soar a little higher each time she came down against him. Every breath brought the passion closer.

"Kakashi," she panted, almost fretfully, "this feels really good."

"Mm." He couldn't communicate much else.

"No – I mean – _really_ good." Her eyes slid shut and she helplessly sought his hand, desperate for something to hold onto. "I think… I think I'm going to…"

She couldn't quite say it, because however it sounded in her head, it still sounded trite. But her orgasm was only seconds away and it still wasn't quite enough. He was holding back, being polite and restrained for her benefit. But there was no room for it now. It just wasn't enough.

"Kakashi – I can't-"

He reared upright before she could finish her plea, and dragged her abruptly against him to meet her mouth in a near frenzied kiss. She hooked her hands over his shoulders as his hips began bucking up hard to meet hers, thrusting so deep her mouth fell open in a silent cry and she could barely breathe.

He was coming, she realized, when she heard his deep groan in her ear and the way his hips began to spasm and jerk. The feel of his erratic thrusts and the wetness of his release was enough to drive her over the edge. She bit his shoulder with a strangled moan, body convulsing around his and milking his length with undulating hips.

Even when it passed, they didn't move. They simply clung to each other, gasping in the aftermath of little twitches and throbs, as if it was still far too soon to return to their separate selves. And when they kissed it was slow and lazy, full of sated passion and raw familiarity. She hummed contentedly, eyes closed as he kissed her cheek and forehead.

This was something she could definitely get used to.

"I thought ladies were supposed to always come first?" she murmured.

"Oh, you're a lady now?" he teased softly. "And it's your fault, anyway."

"_My _fault?" she echoed incredulously, shifting in his lap just enough to make his eyebrow twitch. "How is that my fault?"

"I told you if you kept talking like that…" he sighed. "Moving like that, breathing like that…"

Sakura smiled contentedly and laid her head against his shoulder once more, pressing tired kisses against his skin. It was then that she became aware of the noise that she'd been deaf to until that moment. It sounded like static. Turning her head she looked to the dark window and realized it was drenched with water. It looked as if the summer heat wave had finally broken.

"It's raining," she murmured.

"The sky does that sometimes," he replied dryly, as he began to yawn.

They finally parted and settled down on the bed, Kakashi behind her, spooning her as they drew the rumpled blankets over themselves. In this position, her bottom was nestled quite snuggly against his hips. She felt his length twitch warning against her once, then subside. He seemed more content to simply draw his finger lazily along her upper arm.

"I don't do hand holding," he warned her. "I don't kiss in public, and I object to being given labels like 'boyfriend'."

Sakura contemplated his words seriously.

"You won't get any shortcuts in your career. If you want to be an elite jonin, you'll have to work as hard as anyone else. If you want into the ANBU, I won't recommend you."

"I wouldn't want you to anyway," she said shortly. "What kind of self-respecting kunoichi gets where she's going simply by mooching favors?"

"And I don't do flings or short-term relationships," he went on. "If this is going to be anything, it's going to be long-term. This is for good."

"For good…?" she echoed, nearly rendered speechless in surprise. "You mean, like… settling down?"

"Not necessarily," he said, and she felt him shrug behind her. "I just mean that I'm in it for the long-haul. Nothing less."

Sakura digested this slowly.

"So?" Kakashi prompted. "Are you still willing?"

"If you get to lay down ground rules, so do I," she retorted. "First of all, you have to take me out to dinner at least once a week – even if it's just to Ichiraku. And you have to pay _occasionally_. It's unsightly fobbing off the bill on your penniless lover."

Kakashi grunted incredulously.

"And my favorite flowers are white lilies, just in case you ever do anything to piss me off and you need to apologize. Don't ever get me chocolates."

"…I hadn't even considered it."

"And if Naruto and Sasuke ever give you a hard time, just come and tell me and I'll sort them out." She turned her head to look at him. "Do you agree to those conditions?"

"If you agree to mine," he nodded. "Shake on it?"

Sakura bit her lip. "I'd rather you kissed me on it," she whispered.

He obliged with a soft smile and pressed his lips against hers in a long, indolent kiss. This was all she wanted, she realized. Something simple and natural and easy. To be able to talk with him as lightly and casually as before but still be able to sink into the temptation of stealing a kiss or two without fear of reprisal or rejection. This was what it felt like to love a man who loved her in return. And although he could be an awkward bastard sometimes, so could she. And if he could put up with her eccentricities, then she could at least learn to tolerate his.

She didn't look forward to the reactions of some of the more conservative individuals in Konoha. Working around the Hokage meant she was walking on eggshells around the likes of the elders and people like Denzou on a daily basis. None of them were particularly fond of Sakura as it was, and if they learnt about _this_ relationship, she could just imagine the new brand of thinly veiled contempt they would sneer her way.

But it wouldn't matter, because as Kakashi had said, this was _for good_. There was plenty of time to disprove people's doubts. And really, what business was it of theirs who fell in love with whom? Sure it wouldn't be seen as particularly honorable business to take up with her former teacher and commander. But her duty was to the people she loved, and shinobi rule #1 was quite explicit about what came first when it came to duty and honor.

"You won't wind up regretting this, will you?" she asked quietly, as their kiss broke.

He shook his head slowly. "I've made my decision."

"Good," she nodded with a firm nod and a faint smile before turning back to face the window. "Because I would have to beat you to death with your own leg if you ran away now."

She heard him chuckle behind her and welcomed the arm that drew around her waist to pull her against the warm wall of his chest.

In the warmth of his arms, listening to the strong beat of his heart and the slow breathing dusting against her damp hair, Sakura found herself being lulled to sleep. She wanted to fall asleep this way every night, safely wrapped in a loving, possessive embrace.

She was almost gone when she felt Kakashi sigh against her neck before musing sleepily, "You'd make a really bossy wife."

* * *

-fini 

_Because the end is never truly the end...  
_


End file.
